New to UEFI: Dual Boot Arch & Windows 8.1 on Separate Drives [SOLVED]

So I've been using Arch for years and have installed dozens of times on BIOS/MBR systems.
I just built a new desktop and I am completely lost on how to deal with the UEFI... everything is so different.
I have 3 drives. In order:
1. sda: SSD for Arch root.
2. sdb: SSD for Windows.
3. sdc: HDD for Arch home.
I primarily use Arch, and I envision the Arch SSD being first in the boot order, with the bootloader chain-loading Windows when I wish to boot it.
I made a 512MiB FAT32 partition on sda1 using GParted, setting the "boot" flag on it. I would have done it from within the installer but I am unfamiliar with GPT-compatible disk utilities and the wiki doesn't have too much of an explanation.
I then proceeded to install Arch, mounting the ESP at /boot as suggested in the guide.
Autocreated grub config at /boot/grub/grub.cfg, which only detected Arch.
I tried to set up a chain load to Windows by editing /etc/grub.d/40_custom as described here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … menu_entry
The result is that Arch does not boot at all. Windows still boots fine, as expected since nothing changed.
So how exactly does one go about setting up Arch to boot from its own GPT drive?
It seems weird to me that the linux kernel images would be stored on the tiny ESP.
And how would I modify the bootloader to chainload Windows on its own GPT drive, with its own ESP?
I'm used to GRUB so that's what I've tried, but if there is a much easier option I'm open to it.
I'd really appreciate any help, it's been quite frustrating.
Last edited by egan (2014-12-09 03:38:24)

Okay, well as usually happens, when I resort to help I end up solving my own problem.
In this case however, I still don't have a good grasp of what is going on.
I deleted the partition table with sgdisk --zap-all /dev/sda and then used gdisk to recreate it, specifically setting the code for /dev/sda1 to ef00.
I then reformatted the FAT partition, leaving the other one alone. After mounting /dev/sda1 to /boot and reinstalling linux and grub, I ran:
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=$esp --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck
as described in the wiki, and
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
And it worked, including automatically detecting Windows on the other drive. Not sure what went wrong the first time but I'm glad to get it working.
Last edited by egan (2014-12-09 19:46:58)

Similar Messages

Dual boot Arch / Windows 8 with grub, uefi and gpt

hi,
(my aplogies for my bad english)
after a fresh installation without worries I have one last problem : starting w8
Partitions :
[root@ToshCM christian]# gdisk -l /dev/sda
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 0.8.7
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sda: 1465149168 sectors, 698.6 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): BAE3660C-FC6F-11E1-9C45-C6B1BB081CD7
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1465149134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 3757 sectors (1.8 MiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 923647 450.0 MiB 2700 Basic data partition
2 923648 1456127 260.0 MiB EF00 Basic data partition
3 1456128 1718271 128.0 MiB 0C01 Basic data partition
4 1718272 1230518271 585.9 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
5 1445343232 1465147391 9.4 GiB 2700 Basic data partition
6 1230518272 1250998271 9.8 GiB 8200
7 1250998272 1291958271 19.5 GiB 8300
8 1291958272 1445343231 73.1 GiB 8300
2 = efi (fat32)
4 = Windows (ntfs)
6 = swap
7 = /
8 = /home
EFI partition is mounted in /boot/efi
[root@ToshCM christian]# grep efi /etc/fstab
UUID=7CD3-EE8E /boot/efi vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 2
For now I have a grub that works perfectly without Windows
Now I try to follow this page
[root@ToshCM christian]# grub-probe --target=fs_uuid /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
7CD3-EE8E
[root@ToshCM christian]# grub-probe --target=hints_string /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
--hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2
I put the result in /etc//grub.d/40_custom
[root@ToshCM christian]# cat /etc/grub.d/40_custom
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Microsoft Windows Vista/7/8 x86_64 UEFI-GPT" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
insmod search_fs_uuid
insmod chain
search --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 7CD3-EE8E
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
I regenerates grub.cfg
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
I check the result in /boot/grub/grub.cfg
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Microsoft Windows Vista/7/8 x86_64 UEFI-GPT" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
insmod search_fs_uuid
insmod chain
search --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 7CD3-EE8E
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
After reboot I can see a fine line with Windows but it has no effect, neither start nor error message
The computer is a Toshiba Satellite C855-1TM
In the BIOS Advanced page "Boot Mode" is [UEFI Boot]
In the Security page "Secure Boot" is [Disabled]
Thanks in advance

vintherine wrote:
the.ridikulus.rat wrote:
@vintherine: Everything you mentioned in the 1st post is correct. In your case the correct commands should be:
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Thanks. I've tried that, get now a single line with Windows, which does not work
EDIT: Are you able to boot Windows independent of GRUB, ie. directly from the firmware boot menu?
I've tried F12 key, found a menu, started on the HD, found a new menu corresponding with the EFI directories (arch_grub, Microsoft....). Microsoft entry sent me on... grub menu
EDIT: Can you try (note the extra line : "set gfxpayload=keep")
It's time for diner (i'm in France). I'll see this in the next hour.
Many thanks
Seems like the actual Windows bootmgfw.efi was overwritten by grubx64.efi or something else. In the boot menu Windows's entry (created by Windows installer) is usually titled "Windows Boot Manager".
EDIT:
Try this. Copy the files from Windows's C:\Windows\Boot\EFI to <EFISYS>/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/ . Overwrite any exisitng files, and make sure <EFISYS>/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/BCD file exists. That is the Windows equivalent of grub.cfg (although BCD cannot be read easily since it is not a text file). Try your menuentry again.
Last edited by the.ridikulus.rat (2013-09-27 18:29:09)

[SOLVED] Dual-boot Arch/Windows - 2 hard drives

Hi Everyone
I've just installed Arch and I'm having a bit of a problem dual-booting between Arch and Windows XP, which are each on a seperate Hard drive.
I've done this successfully before with Mepis Linux and Windows XP, but for some reason it's not working this time.
The difference is that I've recently purchased a new computer and both Windows and Arch are on SATA drives whereas last time they were both on IDE drives. Also I'm not sure whether or not to enable SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS (apparently it doesn't work with XP anyways), or SATA port 0-3 Native mode. Although I've tried all possible combinations and it doesn't seem to work at all.
Here is my menu.lst file:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0df05d3b-537c-4576-ad36-1f90a6b01ec0 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
When I boot into Arch from Grub it works fine, but when I try to boot into Windows from Grub, I get this:
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
and then nothing....No error message or anything. It just hangs. Does anyone have any ideas as to what's happening? Thanks in advance.
edit: It seems I solved the problem by adding these lines to the menu.lst file:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
root (hd1,0)
I can now boot into either Arch or Windows from the Grub menu
Last edited by axle (2008-09-30 02:35:54)

This is a question that can very easily be answered by doing a simple google serach. Google is your friend. I suggest you start there and come back if you run into issues.

Dual Booting with Windows Off of Different Hard Drives

Hi,
Been reading the guides but I'm still struggling with this.
I have this set up
SSD1 - Windows 7 (includes windows boot)
HDD1 - Windows Files (NTFS)
HDD2 - Arch Linux
When I installed, Arch, I unplugged the windows drives.
I partitioned arch as following (from fdisk -l)
sda1 /boot
sda2 /
sda3 swap
sda4 Extended
sda5 /var
sda6 /home
my menu.lst file looks like this
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux X11
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda2 ro 5
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
# (1) Arch Linux Multi-User
title Arch Linux Multi-User
root (hd0,0)
kernal /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda2 ro 3
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
# (2) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda2 ro
initrd /initramfs-linux-fallback.img
After I reconnect the windows drives, i set the boot drive in the bios to HDD2. It boots to grub, but now booting the options fails. i tried changing (hd0,0) to hd1 and hd2 but it fails to do anything, so i assume (hd0,0) is correct. Booting as is puts me into the recovery shell. I tried changing the root=/dev/sda2 to root=/dev/sdb2 thinking it might work, and while it booted, it said it could not find the file system and asked for the root password for maintenance mode. I'm having a hard time discerning which hard drive is which and what the partitions are called once I added the extra disks. Is there some way to determine this? I noticed I couldn't use fdisk in the recovery shell.
Many Thanks.

This is precisely the reason to use UUID, or even better labels, instead of actual device names which might change depending on the order in which your system "discovers" the disks.
Here's what I would have done:
1) Connect all three drives and boot into a LiveCD
2) Run blkid to get UUID for each partition (might be useful if labels fail for whatever reason). This will also show you the currently assigned labels, if any, for the partitions
3) Use e2label to set label for ext{2,3,4} and ntfslabel for NTFS partitions. (Both use slightly different syntax, so be sure to check manpages before proceeding)
4) In menu.lst, replace all occurences of
root=/dev/sdxy
with
root=LABEL=arch
, assuming you set the label for your / partition as "arch"
5) In menu.lst, replace all occurences of
root (hdx,y)
with
label boot
, assuming you set the label of your /boot partition as "boot"
6) In /etc/fstab, replace all occurences of
/dev/sdxy
with
LABEL=<insert corresponding label here>
7) Profit!!!

Arch and preinstalled windows 7 UEFI dual boot troubles

Hi guys, I have a UEFI pc already with windows 7 on and want to dual boot arch. Problem is the current uefi partition is only 100mb and whenever i try to install a bootloader in the arch install it gives the message 'not enough room on partition'. is there a way i can increase the current uefi partition size without effecting the windows install?

Try checking how much free space you actually have on the ESP. 100MB is smaller than most people here recommend, but it should be big enough to hold the Windows boot loader, a Linux boot loader or boot manager, and at least two or three (probably more like ten or fifteen) Linux kernels and initrd files. If the 100MiB is nearly used up, then that suggests that something unusual is chewing up a bunch of space, and you can probably delete those files. This is just a task of routine file management -- identify what's consuming the space and delete anything that you don't need. The trick is figuring out what you don't need, so if you're uncertain of something, post back with details (for instance, "I've found 70 1MiB .png files in the Foo/Bar directory; do I need them?").
If something is legitimately consuming that much space, you can either create a second ESP (although that could cause problems down the road if you need to re-install Windows) or resize your partitions. Chances are you've got a Windows partition that immediately follows the ESP. Resizing it so you can increase the ESP's size is possible, but will require resizing the Windows partition from the front. This is risky and is likely to be time-consuming, so be sure to back up before you do it. Another possibility would be to create a larger ESP elsewhere on the disk, copy the contents of the first ESP to the new one, and delete the original. The 100MB of unused space would be wasted, or maybe you could find a way to use it (swap space comes to mind, although 100MB is tiny by modern swap space standards). On a modern disk, 100MB of wasted space is likely to be trivial -- for instance, on a 1TB disk, 100MB is just 0.01% of the total disk space.
As cfr says, some boot loaders/managers, such as rEFInd and GRUB, enable you to load your kernels from something other than the ESP. Thus, if you're running out of space because you've got big kernels or initrd files, you could put them elsewhere and use just a small amount of space on the ESP for the boot loader/manager.

Simple UEFI GPT Dual boot with windows 8 boot partition question.

Hi everyone,
I think it's obvious from the quuestion that I'm a newbie here (and from the location of the post) but I have read (several times):
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI_Bootloaders
and the incredibly helpful:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginner%27s_Guide
along with many forum posts. unfortunately this:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot
appears out of date and so I need to ask you fine people my question.
If I want to dual boot Arch with my Windows 8 my question is on the boot partition. I have an existing windows EFI boot partition. should I mount this partition to my "/mnt/boot/efi" folder and then copy the files to this partition when I am setting up rEFInd (my chosen bootloader from wiki page, comments/suggestions are welcome) or should I setup a separate boot partition for my arch installation. I assume from reading about rEFInd that the former is how I should do it as this seems to be how refind would be able to "see" my windows bootloader.
The reason I am double checking and asking here is I know that windows can be a temperamental beast and is very prone to not booting so I don't want to mess with the windows boot partition unduly.
Thanks in advance guys, looking forward to getting my arch working!
Last edited by crashandburn4 (2013-03-03 13:42:43)

$esp = EFI System Partition?
also, ok, gummiboot, I'm glad I can mount the esp as /boot (that was my original thought but reread the tutorial and wasn't sure) just double checking, it is the esp created by windows 8 that I mount?
in addition, as I am slightly new to this is there any tutorial that can tell me how to set up gummiboot? I've looked here:
http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/gummiboot
but don't see anything in the way of detailed instructions.
from your post: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159061
I'm gonna guess it's something like this (please let me know if this is right)
/mount $ESP /mnt/boot
pacman -S gummiboot
(after chrooting)
//exit chroot
gummiboot
*stuff saying gummiboot is not configured*
gummiboot install
is it something like that? can anyone point me towards a manual
Last edited by crashandburn4 (2013-03-03 14:58:53)

[Success] Dual Booting Arch and Windows 7 [Advice / Confirmation]

So I have been trying to get Starcraft II to work with wine and no luck.
I have decided to install windows back on my computer, besides it might come in handy since I'm heading back to school soon.
Anyways I have tried dual booting arch and windows in the past, and my results have never been stable.
Today I will try using the program gparted.
Let me give you my thoughts on how I plan to go through this and please give me some advice so I don't loose everything I have worked for on my linux box
1.Currently I have two hard drives, one for all my main programs and one for my media files (mounting usb, dvd, etc, and it actually has no files in it xD).
I plan to use gparted to re-size my second harddrive (media drive), create an extended partition, and a logical ntfs partition within it.
2.I pop in my windows cd that I recieved with my laptop and install it on the space I have partitioned for windows.
3. If my grub gets wiped out my windows (which I hope it doesn't not sure how the MBR stuff works) I insert a Ubuntu live cd and do
sudo grub
> root (hd0,0)
> setup (hd0)
> exit
4.Configure grub to boot windows 7.
5.Be happy with no headache.
SO....
If someone with past experience with dual booting windows and arch could please give me some advice, as I do not want to lose all my data, start over, and have another headache.
I know I must learn to backup arch, which I will before september.
But if anyone has any protips, or sees a flaw in my plan please point it out!!!
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this and even more if advice has been given to boost my confidence!
For now I will wait
Thank you fellow archies.
Last edited by Jabrick (2011-07-03 01:29:36)

satanselbow wrote:
1) Windows must be installed to a primary partition - attempting to install it to an logical partition will result in an epic fail
2) Physically disconnect the harddrive you do not want windows on as windows typically installs the bootloader on the 1st hardisk (ie /sda) regardless of installation drive (ie /sdb)
3 / 4) Complete the windows installation then reattached your Arch drive and edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (as root) pointing the W7 entry to (hd1,0) - no need to reinstall grub
5) Hey it's windows - anything could happen
If you create an NTFS partition right at the beginning of the the drive before you start the W7 install you can prevent it greedily using up 2 of you 4 primary partitions - I would also completely update you new W7 installation past SP1 before reattaching the other drive to further prevent W7 going mental
satanselbow thank you so much!
Everything works great I had no stumbles, and I hope no problems in the future!!
I will post exactly what I did in case someone has the same issue.
1. Partition you're secondary harddrive as primary ntfs with gparted
2. Reboot, and if you get a file system check error, check you're udev rules. (For my case in particular I had to change the udev rules I got for auto mounting usb, ext harddrive, etc.
3.Power off your computer and physically remove the harddrive that contains all your linux goodies
4. Plug in your windows cd and install in the partition you created
5. Update your windows OS
6. Plug in Ubuntu live CD and reboot
7. Use commands to get grub to overwrite the windows boot loader (In my case I put grub everyone hd0,0 hd0,1 just to be sure, but you might want to do things cleaner)
8. Reboot and see if grub loads up
9. Use Ubuntu live CD again and launch Gparted, select the boot to your extra linux space (if you had one, not sure if this is needed)
10. Plug in your linux harddrive and reconfigure /boot/grub/menu.lst and your good to go
Once again shout outs to satanselbow!!! For without him I might've failed brutally!
Cheers!

How to dual boot with Windows 8.1 and Arch?

Hello everyone,
I've been looking into using Linux as my daily driver since having some experience with it on a server. After some digging around, I think Arch Linux is the best distro for me, now onto where I am.
I'm currently running Windows 8.1 (updated from Windows 8, which updated from Windows 7) on a Dell Inspiron 15R SE laptop, I want to dual boot Arch Linux with it. I've looked at the wiki and I'm still not entirely sure what to do.
Can anyone give me a quick list of steps of what to do to dual boot this? I've dual booted Ubuntu in the past and it was really simple because an installer did it all.
Thanks, Expi.

stqn wrote:
Expi1 wrote:Thanks, I'm mostly struggling with how to partition for Arch and then how to do the bootloader. I'm using Win8 64-bit and from what I understand a Legacy BIOS bootloader. I'm not entirely sure what I should be partitioning the C: into, I've done partitions before, just not for Arch and then I'm not sure whether to use GRUB or syslinux, or if I even need those. Or if I need to use GPT or MBR?
Your disk is already partitionned so you don’t have to choose between GPT or MBR, the choice is already made.
You don’t partition “C:”, that is the name of a Windows partition. You partition a drive.
Grub or syslinux, use whatever the beginners guide tells you to. Personally I think syslinux is simpler which is why I’m using it (but I’m not dual-booting, if that matters).
You’re not saying what your problem is with partitionning, so it’s hard to help.
Thanks for getting back to me, I'm not sure if I just create one large partition for Archlinux or if I have to create multiple? Where I'm also confused is with the Creating Filesystems part of the guide. I don't understand how I'd do this in Windows, or what /dev/sda1 is referring to.
As for the bootloader part, the Beginner's Guide gives you a choice between syslinux and grub, what I'm not sure about is which to use considering I'm dualbooting. How it will affect my windows bootloader, do I disregard that and use GRUB now? I'm unclear on how that works.
I'm also aware I need to disable Secure Boot, I just searched my BIOS options and couldn't find anything remotely relating to that, so I'm assuming it's not an issue since this computer was originally on Windows 7 anyway?
Thanks again, Expi.
Last edited by Expi1 (2014-03-06 19:54:30)

Arch does not show up in Grub when dual booting with windows 8

I just installed Arch linux, dual booting with windows 8 using the beginners guide[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide] itself. Now Grub is installed and i can only find Windows 8 and I cannot find Arch. Is there a way I can find if arch linux has been installed and show up in Grub.
Sorry, I am a newbie, but i chose to post this topic here and not newbie corner as it is installation related.
My windows 8 is installed on /dev/sda1 with ntfs partition type. Arch Linux is installed on /dev/sda6 and it is ext4 partition. I dont know if this info helps. I am using Thinkpad R61
Last edited by sutro_droid (2013-03-06 00:30:48)

ivokosir wrote:It may be that you didn't install os-prober before running grub-mkconfig. This happened to me once, I hope I'm not too late to warn you.
I am sorry, yes you are too late. I have wiped windows 8 and performed clean install. No regrets. And as a matter of fact, I did grub-config and then installed os-prober. That could be the problem. Thanks. I will try this again another time.

Separately encrypt dual-boot system: Windows+Arch

Hey guys, I want to use a dual-boot system: Windows 7 + Arch (windows being first on hdd). I would also want to encrypt them, but make it so I could access them with different passwords, like if I enter arch, i woudn't be able to see contents of windows, and vice-versa. I need arch to be on LVM, ext4 filesystem(the latter not so important, if it's trouble).
I've come accross this guide: https://aprescott.com/posts/dual-bootin … encryption which describes windows 7 encrypted with truecrypt + arch(on lvm) encrypted with dm-crypt+luks, grub legacy is put inside MBR, truecrypt bootloader resides on linux /boot, copied from MBR after truecrypt installed it there and then replaced with GRUB. With described approach there is windows boot partition and linux boot partition which remain unencrypted.
1) The question is, is it possible to do something similar but make those boot partitions encrypted too? so the only thing unencrypted would be MBR? I've read that people used Disc cryptor and with it easily encrypted windows boot partition with no trouble. What about linux boot partition? Maybe there is a way not to make separate /boot for linux, and encrypt the whole lvm partition with truecrypt(so truecrypt would install it's bootloader into MBR and i could save it and use just like in the link i gave above)?
2)Another question is for people using truecrypt for whole disk encryption. When you do full disk encryption or system encryption(for example Windows), the only thing left unencrypted is MBR? Is the boot sector of windows partition encrypted too? So in this case it maybe possible to keep MBR(at least the bootloader, without partition table) on separate media.
3)Also, in case of full disk encryption, is partition table encrypted too?
and please, I don't want questions as "Why do you need it this way?". I just want to have full disk encryption, so if the MBR is the only thing unencrypted I could keep it on separate media and boot from it(Disc Cryptor allows such feature), but I also need the system to be split into windows and linux parts, accessible by different passwords. And I dont think the idea of using truecrypt hidden partition and hidden os is good in here.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Kape (2013-01-24 13:58:41)

hiciu wrote:
/dev/sda
+--------------------------------------+
|(mbr and partition table) |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |(truecrypt) windows boot partition| |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |(truecrypt) windows 7 | |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |linux boot partition | |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |(lvm on luks) | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| | |rootfs | | |
| | |------------------------------| | |
| | |home | | |
| | |------------------------------| | |
| | |swap | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------+
3)Also, in case of full disk encryption, is partition table encrypted too?
Take a look at diagram #1 . Mbr and partition table will be not encrypted. You don't want that: there are no sensitive data in there; both windows and linux need to access partition table to know where are partitions on disk; mbr must contain some not encrypted code that will be loaded by bios, since that code can't be encrypted it can be modified (potentially in such a way to hide the modifications from the system), as long as you boot from this device there is no way around it without "secure boot" and mbr singing.
I believe windows boot partition and windows partition can be encrypted with truecrypt (you need to check that, I don't know truecrypt). There still will be some minimal not encrypted bootloader in order to ask you for for key / passphrase, so it is not 100% secure (someone could replace it; search for "evil maid" attack by Joanna Rutkowska).
Linux bootloader (I forgot about it on diagram) and linux boot partition can't be encrypted (again, unless you do: truecrypt -> grub2 / syslinux -> linux, and there still will be not encrypted minimal bootloader).
You see, the problem is always the same: you can't boot from encrypted device. You need something that will decrypt it first.
I just want to have full disk encryption, so if the MBR is the only thing unencrypted I could keep it on separate media and boot from it(Disc Cryptor allows such feature), but I also need the system to be split into windows and linux parts, accessible by different passwords.
In order to secure boot partitions / bootloaders one could separate encryption and bootloaders, keep data on encrypted disk and keep bootloaders code at secure location (i.e. on pen drive attached to key chain). Take a look at diagram #2:
/dev/sda /dev/usb-stick
+--------------------------------------+ +--------------------------+
|(mbr and partitions table) | |(mbr and partitions table)|
| +----------------------------------+ | | +----------------------+ |
| |other data / partitions | | | |linux boot partition | |
| +----------------------------------+ | | | +------------------+ | |
| |(lvm on luks) | | | | |grub / syslinux | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | | | | |kernel | | |
| | |rootfs | | | | | |initramfs | | |
| | |------------------------------| | | | | +------------------+ | |
| | |home | | | | +----------------------+ |
| | |------------------------------| | | +--------------------------+
| | |swap | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------+
In this setup you boot your system from usb stick. Bios will load and execute mbr and bootloader from usb stick (and you know its good since you have it physically secured), it should decrypt luks and boot system. You still can run windows with truecrypt using /dev/sda as boot device. I know I didn't exactly answered your questions.
1)so this way i can leave mbr(including partition table) empty on hdd, while having them on usb stick? good. I can put copy of mbr with truecrypt loader on that usb stick too along with /boot partition just like in the link i gave above? So there would be NOTHING left unencrypted on my hdd? i like it.
2)My main goal is that hdd would look like blank if someone would want to check its contents. I've heard using Luks leaves some traces in the volume header?(it's not possible to use truecrypt for full linux system encryption too, right?)
3)How do i properly put /boot on usb stick? Also will there be any troubles updating arch with /boot being on separate media?
thanks!

How to install Arch for dual-boot with Win 7 (on 2 hard drives)?

Hello,
the TLDR first: how exactly should I proceed when setting up GRUB for 2 hard drives to dual-boot Arch (64 bit)and Win 7 (64 bit)?
Long version: So, I have the following hard drive & partition layout:
On my first hard drive (250 GB big) I have: Win 7 64 bit, all the programs for Windows and of course the EFI partition
My second hard drive is 1 TB big and formatted in NTFS and it only contains data. It has 2 partitions, one is about 750 GB big and used for simple storage.
Sidenote 1: sometimes my disk management (Windows' own gparted) shows either the little disk or the big one as disk 0. Don't know what exactly this means, but I have never ever experienced any problems whatsoever during use.
Sidenote 2: the UEFI motherboard (ASRock H67M) cannot boot into Legacy mode.
I want to install Arch on a ~200 GB partition on the second hard drive (the one with 1 TB). (click here if you want to see a screenshot) I am posting this because I am confused with how exactly I should deal with the whole "2 hdds & UEFI" thing.
So how exactly should I proceed when setting up GRUB for this setup?
For partitioning I suppose I would have to use fdisk or cgdisk. I used cgdisk before and found it to be straightforward. Then, because I have experienced my fair share of problems with rEFInd, I'd like to use GRUB.
Last edited by jones (2013-06-29 14:36:56)

First thing you should do is become familiar with your motherboard.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/manual.asp?Model=H67M
This will probably help you out in understanding the sidenote 1 thingie (hdd's on sata3 and/or sata2 connectors)
As on sidenote 2, according to the manual it seems to be possible to boot legacy mode, see Storage Configuration.

[SOLVED] RTC and dual booting with Windows 8/8.1

I am planning ahead of installing Arch on a windows 8.1 laptop, and need to understand whether or not the known Windows registry hack to get windows to use UTC for the RTC is still valid for Windows 8/8.1? I have been searching via google and the usual sources of information, but it is not clear to me if there are problems doing this, specifically if arch is dual booted with Windows 8/8.1 rather than older versions of the MS OS. Certainly I have used the technique without any problem in the past when dual booting Windows XP with Arch on several different machines.
Does anyone have personal experience with doing this on a Windows 8 or 8.1 machine and can report here on whether it works successfully or not?
Thanks for any advice.
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-11 21:16:21)

Since there were no replies at this point I thought I would just go ahead and implement the registry hack on the Windows 8.1 O/S in the laptop and see if Windows behaves. It appears to be OK, with the displayed time being correct after reboot, and time synchronisation remaining fine with no problems seen in the displayed time, although I won't be able to read the RTC directly until I have completed the Arch install in the coming week or two. I now don't foresee any issues with the time synchronisation between booting Arch and Windows 8.1 so I will mark this as solved.
Since the RTC is now in UTC then normal clock config in Arch using chrony should perform normally once the install is done and the new system set up.
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-11 21:17:11)

Dual booting Arch and Ubuntu

Hi, I would like to dual boot Arch and Ubuntu using GRUB2.
I already have Arch, set up as it's described in the Beginner's Guide, with GRUB2 installed. How would I go about dual booting Ubuntu, preferably without overwriting the existing bootloader?
I haven't tried anything yet, but the problem that I can see is resizing my /home; is this possible on the Ubuntu liveDVD? If not, would I be able to resize /home with my gParted liveCD?
Unfortunately, I have no backup media to use, so I wouldn't be able to transfer anything away as a backup.
Here is my partition table:
%lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 30G 0 part /
├─sda2 8:2 0 12G 0 part [SWAP]
├─sda3 8:3 0 5M 0 part
└─sda4 8:4 0 889.5G 0 part /home
sda1 is my root partition, sda2 is swap, sda3 is GRUB's boot partition, which I was told that I needed in the guide, and sda4 (/home) occupies the "rest of the disk".
I am using a GPT-partitioned drive, as I read this has many advantages and I do not plan to triple-boot Windows.
So, can someone tell me what I do if I want to dual boot Ubuntu? I'm very sorry if this should have been posted on the Ubuntu forums, but I'm just more familiar with Arch, and I already have it installed. Please ask if you need any other files like my fstab. I have my Ubuntu liveDVD, GParted live CD (and Arch CD) at hand.
Thanks in advance, rberyl.
(Also, does anyone else think it's a bit of a backwards thing to put the output of "date -u +%W$(uname)|sha256sum|sed 's/\W//g'" as a sign-up question? )
Last edited by rberyl (2012-12-29 11:45:23)

Hi rberyl,
You can change your partitions using an inbuilt tool like cfdisk, or if you'd prefer a GUI gparted can be installed from the Arch repos. This will allow you to shrink sda4, and set up the new partitions for your Ubuntu OS. Although this shouldn't cause any data loss, its best practice to back up just in case.
When installing Ubuntu, be sure to opt-out of bootloader creation. I think you have to use the alternate installation media to get this option. You can add your Ubuntu partition to the existing bootloader by running osprober (available from the repos) and then running grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg . Alternatively, you can manually edit your GRUB config. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … NU.2FLinux for instructions.
Good luck!
Last edited by smazza (2012-12-29 16:04:08)

GRUB not loading in a UEFI dual boot scenario.

Hey there everyone, I'm having a bit of trouble dual booting arch and windows 7.
So far using the beginner's guide I have partitioned my drive with sda3 as my boot partition and sda's 4 and 5 as my / and home partitions respectively using GPT partitioning, so that the two partitions created by my windows 7 64-bit install won't be affected.
GRUB has installed correctly on sda3 and the windows 7 loader was detected when I ran grub-mkconfig however after booting I am greeted with a windows message stating that bootmgr was not found. So as far as I can tell it seems like grub isn't being loaded at all. Is this because GRUB is installed on sda3 rather than sda1?
The content of my /etc/fstab can be found here:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda4
UUID=1dd5f519-d9a2-4030-9075-adc5b90b4470 / ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 1
# /dev/sda5
UUID=c0f183e3-612f-4424-a722-fa8894dc202a /home ext4 rw,relatime,data=ordered 0 2
# /dev/sda3
UUID=6129-A183 /boot/efi vfat codepage=437,noatime 0 2

It looks like you have installed and setup grub for BIOS systems and not for UEFI!!!
Please read arch UEFI wiki throughlly https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI, UEFI Bootloaders https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UE … s#GRUB_2.x and last but not least GRUB https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … _systems_2
Last edited by s1ln7m4s7r (2013-04-04 01:52:49)

When dual-booting with Windows 7, Mac OSX time settings reset every reboot.

I have recently installed Windows 7 Professional on my mid 2010 MacBook Pro via BootCamp (Running Mavericks BTW). Everything runs grean and have not experienced any problems on the Windows side, but I have a problem with Mac OSX now. When I am using Windows 7, and I reboot into Mac OSX, I find that my time settings are wrong. It seems like my time zone has changed, because the date is correct, as well as the minutes, but the hour is always wrong. When I go to Date & Time in System Preferences, and my time zone is correct, but I still have to chage the hour in the time. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how to stop it would be greatly appreciated.

If you dual boot your Windows PC with OS X or Linux, you may have experienced a problem in which your clocks reset themselves incorrectly every time you boot into Windows. Here's a simple registry edit to fix that.
Essentially, the incorrect clock setting happens because OS X and Linux use GMT time while Windows tries to synchronize with your local time zone, getting confused when you reboot between the two. Apple's own Boot Camp drivers for Windows are supposed to fix this problem, though some users have noticed that it still happens even with the drivers installed, and some Linux users are left out in the cold. Furthermore, if you have a Hackintosh, you can't install the Boot Camp drivers, so you'll need to find another way around the problem.
To fix it, just hit Start and type regedit.exe in the search box. Hit Enter and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation. Right click anywhere in the right pane and hit New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it RealTimeIsUniversal, then double click on it and give it a value of 1.
Lastly, reboot into OS X, then reboot back into Windows. You should now notice that your clock actually displays the correct time.

New to UEFI: Dual Boot Arch & Windows 8.1 on Separate Drives [SOLVED]

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