Wiki article finished: dual boot when SafeBoot encryption is present

Hi,
I just started a new article on how to dual boot when one receives a computer with SafeBoot drive encryption installed already. I posted for help on this HERE and HERE if you want some back-story. It wasn't easy, but I'm super excited about the setup now and wanted to write a HowTo. There is a decent amount of discussion about this on the web and I have not found many solutions that aren't a bit convoluted (making backups of the encrypted SafeBoot MBR, then trying to chainload to that file with grub) and I think where I ended up is the simplest, least risky, leaves company issued junk as untouched as possible, and yet provides a dual boot setup with shared file access.
Best of all, I've not found my setup elsewhere; if that's really the case, it happened on Arch first!
Check out the article where I've summarized what I did: LINK
I'm posting here as I wonder if it deserves its own page or if I should merge it with Windows and Arch Dual Boot, which already exists. I could see it either way, so I wanted to ask here. While it would make it easier to find being grouped with the general dual-boot with Win article, it's also fairly specialized so I could see leaving it top level so that it develops a page rank when someone searches for "safeboot linux" or "safeboot dual boot windows" or something like that.
Thoughts? I hope to finish the article tonight or tomorrow with specifics.
Last edited by jwhendy (2011-04-20 05:47:23)

Similar Messages

Win 7 dual boot with SafeBoot encryption halfway there!

EDIT: Sorry for changing the title. It used to be Need those knowledgeable with Windows (esp. 7) for dual boot input, but I had some success and didn't want to start a whole new post. See the last comment for the update!
Hi,
Disclaimer: please don't feel compelled to issue warnings regarding doing this on a work computer. I'm aware of the risks, have talked about what I do on my computer (such as wiping it and installing Linux only over my Win issued encrypted system) with a higher-up in IT that I know well, and I have spoken with IT reps about my running Linux. They don't care; they just don't support it or help. I even have an online community for Linux users at work. I'm searching for a work-around that will allow me dual boot while fully maintaining the protection my company seeks by issuing encrypted systems (i.e. replacing a proprietary encryption tool with an open source one).
I'm in a tricky situation. At work I'm issued a computer with SafeBoot, a full-disk encryption tool. On my last computer, I simply installed Arch over everything because dual booting was not possible. I really need Windows, but since I had a desktop as well for CAD usage, I used that for Win and just had Linux on the laptop. My lease just came up and I was issued a new laptop for the next three years. In addition, they upgraded the laptop so I can run CAD from it and they'll be taking my Windows desktop.
So... I'm on a mission to try to find a dual boot solution. I used to run Linux from a flash drive, but sharing data was impossible since I still can't even mount the Win partition and the flash drive isn't big enough to hold anything useful besides the OS itself (8gb). Here's my hope forward:
- Make a bootable clone of Win 7 while it's running with the hope that it's not encrypted
- Test it quite repeatedly to make sure I can boot from it
- Wipe the drive and create a partition for Win and one for Arch
- Use TrueCrypt (or some other cross-platform encryption system) for Win 7
- Restore Win 7 from my bootable clone back onto the encrypted partition on the laptop HD
- Install Arch with LUKS/dm-crypt
- Be extremely happy and celebrate.
Does anyone know if the first steps in particular are feasible? I have used Carbon Copy Cloner on my Mac and it can make a bootable clone while the system is running. It's actually quite awesome because you have an incremental backup solution that youc an also boot from in a pinch in case you need to do something to your HD that can't be done when it's mounted. Much faster than booting from the OS X install disk.
I've been looking for an equivalent on Win and not happy so far. Macrium sounded promising, but when running it, it seems to want to backup to some kind of image file, not simply do a file copy of everything on the drive. Perhaps this will work... I'm just not sure. I also looked at DriveImageXML, but am not sure about that either. I'm using the built-in Win backup tool right now and will see if that works.
Does anyone know of a tool that will do this? CloneZilla or any Linux tool will not work because a literal clone (like dd) made while the computer is off is worthless. I need a decrypted backup.
Lastly, any other general input? Does this seem feasible?
Thanks!
Last edited by jwhendy (2011-04-15 22:02:07)

Wow! I can't believe this is working. The rough gist of it is that I think I've found a method that won't require virtualization or fiddling with SafeBoot or having to jump through hoops to either clone while running (to have a decrypted clone), or try to do something like THIS (this is terrifying, since it involves making a clone with dd while it's encrypted and then restoring the SafeBoot encrypted mbr somewhere else later). The gist is like so:
- Use Win7 built in partition editor to shrink it down as far as possible. For me, this was down to about 130G (out of ~230G)
- Use same tool to creat two additional partitions: one for Arch and one for TrueCrypt
- Used Partition Wizard Home Edition to change the type to 0x83 (very necessary)
- Reboot, install Arch to /dev/sda2
- Install grub to /dev/sda2, not to the MBR!
- Reboot into Windows and used EasyBCD to add an archLinux entry to the Win7 boot options
- Rebooted and tried it out!
- I'm logged into Arch right now!
This is actually quite incredible. I think this is about the best I could have asked for. I get to avoid any issues with replacing SafeBoot with something else (even though I'm not sure my IT group really cares [1]), I get a dedicated Linux install, which runs much better and cleaner than virtualizing, and I can share all my stuff via the TrueCrypt partition [2].
I'll keep everyone posted and will probably end up adding this to the wiki. I think this is a win-win situation. [3]
Footnotes:
[1] For example, users are permitted to use their personal Macs at work... but they're not encrypted. People just bring them in and use them. They're obviously not protected, so why would IT care if my computer is encrypted with TrueCrypt vs. SafeBoot when they let people run around with no encryption? Not to mention, as said above, I've talked about my doings with an IT higher-up and he's never said anything of caution about not having encryption -- just suggested I routinely run ClamAV. I did get some strong words of caution on SuperUser. I guess everyone can be happy this way.
[2] I have yet to set this up, but think it will be far easier than what I just went through!
[3] The only thing I'm bummed about is that Win7 couldn't be resized any smaller because of unmovable safeboot related files during defrag. It's only using 30G of space right now, but wouldn't shrink below 129G. It doesn't really matter -- I have 30G for Linux and about 80G for my storage. My storage isn't more than 11G for all my work documents right now, so I don't really anticipate blowing through another 70G anytime soon.

Windows 7 prompting dual boot when there is no other OS

When I boot my machine I get prompted about which OS to boot, either "earlier version of Windows" or Win 7. I find this pretty strange as I formatted the HDD during the Win 7 RC1 installation. When I try to boot the "earlier version" I get an error message about some missing file naturally, as the OS doesn't exist. How does the boot sequence detect OSes and how can I edit them so I won't have to encounter this promt on every startup?

Try running Startup Repair from the installation DVD to repair this. To do it, boot from the DVD...select "Next" at the first screen...Select "Repair this computer" in the lower left of the next screen.- John

Dual booting win 7 and arch: cannot install grub to partition

I have read the arch wiki page on dual booting and several other sources on line, but I am still struggling to get this to work.
I am trying to dual boot arch and windows 7 on my lenovo ideapad s205. the machine comes with windows 7 pre-installed.
I shrank the win 7 partition and added an extended partition with 3 logical partions for /boot, swap, and /.
I am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).
I have also tried to use the windows boot loader to load arch, as described in the arch wiki page on dual booting. The problem here is that, taking this approach, I should install grub to my /boot partition, but when I try to do this, the installer only allows me to install grub to sda or sdb (the usb stick).
I have read that grub should be able to boot linux from a logical partition. Is this so?
Is there something wrong with the arch installer that it is not giving me the option of installing to a partition rather than the mbr, or is this a problem with my partition scheme, or something else?
I am tempted to remove lenovo's recovery system, but on the other hand, I have already needed to use it several times while monkeying around with installing arch.
Thanks for any help.
UPDATE:
I now have the laptop dual-booting win 7 and arch. My solution ( adapted from here: http://helms-deep.cable.nu/~rwh/blog/?p=177) was to:
1. installed arch on the partitions I had created for it, but skipped the "install bootloader" stage.
2. in win 7, I downloaded and installed EasyBCD and made an entry for arch in it. I checked the option to "Use EasyBCD's copy of GRUB"
3. When I restarted, I got a grub error because the entry in grub's menu.lst was pointing at the wrong partitions for the kernel and root.
4. So I went back into the arch live disk, mounted the boot partition and edited menu.lst.
Now when I start the laptop, the windows boot loader starts and I can choose between win 7 and arch. when I select arch, grub4dos starts and gives me the option to start arch. this is not particularly elegant (nor is it fast), so I think this solution is less than ideal, but it does work.
I'd be interestd in any thoughts about what went wrong and what a better solution would be.
thanks.
Last edited by ratchet (2011-10-10 19:09:16)

ratchet wrote:II am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).
Is this a typo in your post or how it was in menu.lst? Surely it should be hd0,0 and not hda0,0? The entry I have in my menu.lst is as follows:
# (2) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
What was yours?
Last edited by JHeaton (2011-10-10 20:18:22)

Invalid EFI file path when dual boot

I'm trying to dual boot arch linux with windows 7.
I have windows 7 and my plan for partition is
sda 4:0 128g <- SSD
├─sda1 4:1 0 70g 0 part <- windows 7 already installed.
├─sda2 4:2 0 4g 0 part <- /swap
├─sda3 4:3 0 500m 0 part <- /boot
├─sda4 4:4 0 40g 0 part <- /, /usr, /usr/local, /opt
sdb 2:0 500g <- HDD
├─sdb1 2:1 0 150g 0 part <- windows D drive
├─sdb2 2:2 0 350g 0 part <- /var, /home, /tmp
Also, my motherboard supports UEFI boot.
Following Beginner's guide, I formatted sda2, sda3, sda4, sdb2 typing
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
# mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sda3
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb2
and I mounted /boot on sda3.
After installing grub, I typed
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Then to make windows7 menu on grub, following Linux menu entry , I modified /etc/grub.d/40_custom file as
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# Windows 7
menuentry "Windows 7" {
set root="(hd0,1)"
chainloader +1
Finishing arch installation and rebooting, I could see the windows 7 section on grub boot menu,
but if I choose windows7, it prints error
error: invalid EFI file path
press any key to continue...
Actually, there was one more error message at first line,
but seeing this error message and reinstalling again and again,
I think something was twisted, and now I can't boot windows either...
So I'm reinstalling windows.
What is the correct way to dual boot windows and arch?
Last edited by hermite (2015-02-04 00:54:00)

It looks like your Windows system was booting in non-EFI mode and so does not have a bootloader on the EFI system partition.
When you have re-installed Windows, check the partition table from the Arch ISO (`parted -l`) -- if there is no EFI system partition (type EF00) then you should install Arch in non-EFI mode (don't use FAT for /boot) and install GRUB using:
# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … therboards

Question about the "Windows and Arch Dual Boot" wiki

I've been reading this wiki http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Win … _Dual_Boot to get a better understanding of what I need to do to install Arch along side of my XP installation and there's one point that I don't understand. Here it is
It is important to note that there is a 1024 cylinder limit with some older BIOSs. This means that the BIOS cannot access things beyond the 1024th cylinder (about 8.5GB), so the /boot partition should be in the first 8.5GB (space before Windows partition).
How does one go about getting the /boot partition created during the installation of Arch to install in the first 8.5g? I have installed Arch in Virtualbox twice so far just so that I'm familiar with the procedure and I can't see anything in the installation where I can do this.
There's one other item that is not clear to me as I've seen conflicting information on it. If I do create a seperate "/boot" partition for Arch, do I need to make it "bootable"during the installation? At this point I don't think that I do.
My understanding of installing to be able to dual boot is that I only need to install Grub to "Sda" and of course edit the grub menu to add the information needed for XP. Is this enough?
Thanks for any help.

Yes, you install grub to sda (master boot record), and add the entry for Windows. In the step where you partition the harddrive, you can choose where to create it. Actually it may not be that much of a problem anymore, my boot is on the third partition, after ~15 GB. You can forget about the bootable flag when using grub, it does not care.

Linux - OS X dual boot/encryption/shared partition suggestions?

Hi,
I've been wanting to encrypt my hard drive for a while and have a MacBook. Currently I have the following setup:
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: OS X (~60GB)
- sda3: Arch (~15GB)
I mount my OS X partition using HFS+ (non-journaled) and keep everything in the OS X partition except for temp stuff on Linux (downloads I don't care about, various documents I might be working on but will eventually delete or move to OS X). This way, I have one repo for all my files. I use rsync to backup my Arch home dir to OS X and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup OS X to an external hard drive.
Now I'd like to do some encryption... but am not really sure how. Here's two scenarios I've considered after reading a bunch. Thoughts?
--- Option 1 ---
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: HFS+ volume for OS X
--- TrueCrypt volume to be created and mounted at /home
- sda3: /boot for Linux
- sda4: Linux with dm-crypt/LUKS
--- just / (no LVM making separate partitions)
--- mount the OS X TrueCrypt volume for filesharing between OSs
Notes: I don't like this for a couple of reasons.
- I have to kind of guess at how much OS X will accumulate over time and make my TC volume for /home accordingly. If I ever run into issues... I'll have to backup, delete, make a new and larger TC volume and then copy it all over
--- Option 2 ---
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: OS X
--- FireVault used on /home
- sda3: /boot for Linux
- sda4: Linux with dm-crypt/LUKS
--- take the plunge and just start keeping all my files on Linux instead of OS X (everything used to be on OS X and I'd just mount the HFS+ drive in Linux to access things)
--- perhaps create a TC volume file that can be used to share files between partitions via the OS X /Shared directory?
Notes: I like this better. Everything is encrypted and thus I can just estimate like 15-20GB for OS X and only keep OS X specific files there (iWork, i* files, etc.) and then make the rest of the disk available for Linux. Since dm-crypt can be used for the whole Linux partition I can let everything (/usr, /var, /home) grow however it wants and not worry about my bad partition size/TC container size predictions.
Remaining issues/questions:
- Still bummed that I can't just keep everything on one OS or the other and share unless I go the TrueCrypt container for OS X home route. I really like that feature now as, essentially, my Linux /home folder right now is just for .configs and temp... everything I actually care about is only in one place. I don't like the idea of having to "merge" two sets of documents I really care about and make the dir hierarchy work...
- Unanswered question remains of whether I can mount logical volumes on both OSs. If I have a logical HFS+ volume in an extended partition, can Linux mount that and vice versa (assuming the filesystem is readable by both, that is)?
- How others get around the issue of making partition size predictions when creating separate partitions for /home vs. /, /usr, etc.
- What partitions are nice to have on their own (besides /home)?
Any thoughts? Am I best just going with TrueCrypt? I've read a lot of people who vote against it due to the license, though I'm not clear on why exactly... just not "totally" open-source? For this reason, I guess I'm leaning toward the second option since I can use standard tools on each. I don't think that plausible deniability is a huge deal for me... though perhaps that could be seen as another advantage of TC? I'll shut up now. Serious thanks for any suggestions... I can't find hardly anything on OS X/Linux dual booting and the use of encryption.

Hi,
I've been wanting to encrypt my hard drive for a while and have a MacBook. Currently I have the following setup:
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: OS X (~60GB)
- sda3: Arch (~15GB)
I mount my OS X partition using HFS+ (non-journaled) and keep everything in the OS X partition except for temp stuff on Linux (downloads I don't care about, various documents I might be working on but will eventually delete or move to OS X). This way, I have one repo for all my files. I use rsync to backup my Arch home dir to OS X and then use Carbon Copy Cloner to backup OS X to an external hard drive.
Now I'd like to do some encryption... but am not really sure how. Here's two scenarios I've considered after reading a bunch. Thoughts?
--- Option 1 ---
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: HFS+ volume for OS X
--- TrueCrypt volume to be created and mounted at /home
- sda3: /boot for Linux
- sda4: Linux with dm-crypt/LUKS
--- just / (no LVM making separate partitions)
--- mount the OS X TrueCrypt volume for filesharing between OSs
Notes: I don't like this for a couple of reasons.
- I have to kind of guess at how much OS X will accumulate over time and make my TC volume for /home accordingly. If I ever run into issues... I'll have to backup, delete, make a new and larger TC volume and then copy it all over
--- Option 2 ---
- sda1: GUID partition table
- sda2: OS X
--- FireVault used on /home
- sda3: /boot for Linux
- sda4: Linux with dm-crypt/LUKS
--- take the plunge and just start keeping all my files on Linux instead of OS X (everything used to be on OS X and I'd just mount the HFS+ drive in Linux to access things)
--- perhaps create a TC volume file that can be used to share files between partitions via the OS X /Shared directory?
Notes: I like this better. Everything is encrypted and thus I can just estimate like 15-20GB for OS X and only keep OS X specific files there (iWork, i* files, etc.) and then make the rest of the disk available for Linux. Since dm-crypt can be used for the whole Linux partition I can let everything (/usr, /var, /home) grow however it wants and not worry about my bad partition size/TC container size predictions.
Remaining issues/questions:
- Still bummed that I can't just keep everything on one OS or the other and share unless I go the TrueCrypt container for OS X home route. I really like that feature now as, essentially, my Linux /home folder right now is just for .configs and temp... everything I actually care about is only in one place. I don't like the idea of having to "merge" two sets of documents I really care about and make the dir hierarchy work...
- Unanswered question remains of whether I can mount logical volumes on both OSs. If I have a logical HFS+ volume in an extended partition, can Linux mount that and vice versa (assuming the filesystem is readable by both, that is)?
- How others get around the issue of making partition size predictions when creating separate partitions for /home vs. /, /usr, etc.
- What partitions are nice to have on their own (besides /home)?
Any thoughts? Am I best just going with TrueCrypt? I've read a lot of people who vote against it due to the license, though I'm not clear on why exactly... just not "totally" open-source? For this reason, I guess I'm leaning toward the second option since I can use standard tools on each. I don't think that plausible deniability is a huge deal for me... though perhaps that could be seen as another advantage of TC? I'll shut up now. Serious thanks for any suggestions... I can't find hardly anything on OS X/Linux dual booting and the use of encryption.

Dual booted Grub-settings on an encrypted arch-install

So I recently installed arch on my SATA drive (which is /dev/sda). I encrypted it with the encryption scheme in the standard installer and everything (to my knownledge) is working fine. Now here's the kicker, I want to dual boot Windows 7. I have already installed it on an old IDE drive. However there's a problem, due to how my motherboard recognized the harddrives the Windows 7 drive becomes /dev/sda and arch becomes /dev/sdb. So I set up my BIOS to boot from the SATA drive, and grub loaded as it should, but it failed when trying to boot Arch.
I tried just changing to /dev/sdb for the root drive in grub, and I also tried using map (hd0) (hd1) and map (hd1) (hd0). Neither worked.
What grub-settings do I need to have this dual-boot work smoothly?
- Knut

sj87 wrote:Maybe you should try mapping sd1 to sd0 instead of the hd* variants?
This is a setting for GRUB, and from what information I can gather it doesn't seem to work that way.
Anyone else know anything?

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!

I have dual boot labs that I set up up for a school. The Partitions consist of mountain lion and windows 7. I use bootlicker as the software for selecting the operating systems. When I choose windows, it takes just under 2 minutes to go to the login sc

I have a dual boot lab that I set up for a school. The partitions consist of Mountain Lion OSX and Windows 7 Ent. I use bootpicker software for choosing the operating system at startup. When I select the windows partition, it take just under 2 minutes from selection to the windows login screen. It seems to take incredibly long for the mac to "shut down and hand over the operating system to windows.
Do you have any suggestions on how to get this timing faster?
Thanks for any ideas/input

The only suggestion I can make is to look ar ReFind (previuosly ReFit). Startup mamangement is one of its features.
But
It is very powerful so test it for yourself before deploying it. Some of the functions are best kept out of the hands of the curious, or 'playful'
And you never answered this question.
Tell me what the needs are, do the users always need to choose Windows or is this a variable?

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.

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.

T530 - Dual boot not displayed on external monitor when docked

Hi,
I just got my new T530, loaded all my applications and data from my T61. The T530 is connected to the 4338 docking station.
I have Win 7 on the internal disk, and Win 8 on the ultrabay disk.
Dual boot works fine when undocked, but when docked and the lid is closed I don't see the dual boot selection on the external monitor and the PC boots into Win 7 (which is my default OS).
When cold or warm booting I also don't see the Thinkpad splash screen.
I did not have this problem with my T61 when docked. There the splash screen and dual boot selection was displayed and I was able to select which OS I want to boot into.
Any ideas whet I can do here?
Thanks

As I came across this it's a matter of the two graphic cards and how they are shared.
The Intel always drives the Laptop-Display and the analogue port, the digitalports at the docking are all driven by the Nvidia Card.
The splashscreen will always be displayed with the intel card and therefore not be visible with the digital ports at the docking.
W530 2438 CTO - i7-3720 QM - K2000M - FHD - 16 GB - SSD Samsung 830 Series 128 GB - Windows 7, 64 bit

About:config settings change by themselves when switching between windows/linux on dual-boot machine with profile shared between OSs

I dual-boot ubuntu and windows7, and have set up firefox to use the same profile data when running under either OS. This works great, except:
(1) each time I switch OSs and start firefox, it runs the "checking add-on compatibility" test (which is a minor annoyance)
(2) each time I start firefox in ubuntu after recently using it under windows, the about:config setting "browser.backspace.action" gets reset from my preferred setting (0) to the default setting (2).
How can I prevent these two things from happening?

Maybe it is better to use separate profiles for each OS and create symlinks or hard links to the sqlite databases that you want to share.
Your Linux profile may be using extensions (e.g. Ubuntu Firefox Modifications) that modify specific settings and in such a case you can't really prevent this.<br />
You can use a user.js file to initialize specific prefs on each start, but that makes it impossible to make changes on the about:config page that last the current session and you need to remember which prefs are affected.

How do I repair a Windows 7 partition when it is after Windows 8 partition in a Dual Boot Setup

I have a laptop that I purchased a year ago and which came pre-installed with Windows 8.
Recently, I successfully added Windows 7 as a dual-boot, and this worked OK. To obtain the space for Windows 7, I shrunk the Windows 8 partition.
In Disk Management, the Windows 8 partition is physically located after OEM and EFI partitions; Windows 7 partition is is adjacent to Windows 8.
All went well until I shrunk the Windows 8 partition further to increase the size of the Windows 7 partition, after which Windows 7 came up with a boot error....Windows 8 still boots OK.
I inserted my Windows 7 disk to perform a Startup/Repair, which failed because the first OS partition it sees is Windows 8 and a message tells me that I need to install the correct media for that system.
I searched for advice and assistance to solve the problem....to no avail - and had to completely re-install Windows 7 and the associated applications.....and I really don't want to have to go through this again.
I actually use Windows 7 more than 8, and if I have to lose one or the other, I would dump Windows 8.
So....is there a manageable way I can keep the two systems recoverable and migrateable to another disk in the future. If not, how do I safely remove the Windows 8 partition without damaging Windows 7? Ideally, I would just like to swap the partitions
round....but with EFI and BCD partitions, I am reluctant to go into the unknown.
Sorry....bit of a saga....but would appreciate any advice.
Rob Nick

Hi Rob,
Above all, as the purpose is to enlarge Windows 7 partition, please understand that shrink Windows 8 partition again cannot help on it. A partition can be expanded only if there is free space "after" it.
So you will still need to delete Windows 7 partition for expanding purpose.
If it is fine to just make Windows 7 back to boot order. Please try following command lines.
Note: Please run CMD in Administrator mode.
bcdedit /export “c:\boot”
This is a backup. You can delete it if things go successfully.
Then please create a new entry for Windows 7:
bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Windows 7”
It will provide an entry ID. Copy it and it will be used in following 2 command lines.
bcdedit /set {identifier} device partition=X
Replace X with the drive letter of Windows 7 system located.
bcdedit /displayorder {identifier} /addlast
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