Dual Boot Assistance

Tealer · 2010-07-12 15:07:48

I'm trying to get a dual-boot working with XP and Arch. I've tried to do this a few times but it's always resulted in GRUB not loading and Windows XP starting up anyway. I have a 250GB HDD and 2GB RAM. My plan is:

sda - /boot 100MB
sda1 - XP 50GB
sda2 - NTFS Storage 80GB
sda3 - / 20GB
sda4 - /swap 1512MB
sda5 - /home rest of HDD

Is this plan okay? The reason that /boot is at the start is because of GRUB not loading before. Also, what is the best way to get the install to work (when preparing the hard drive)?

Inxsible · 2010-07-12 15:10:26

Tealer wrote:

I'm trying to get a dual-boot working with XP and Arch. I've tried to do this a few times but it's always resulted in GRUB not loading and Windows XP starting up anyway. I have a 250GB HDD and 2GB RAM. My plan is:
sda - /boot 100MB
sda1 - XP 50GB
sda2 - NTFS Storage 80GB
sda3 - / 20GB
sda4 - /swap 1512MB
sda5 - /home rest of HDD
Is this plan okay? The reason that /boot is at the start is because of GRUB not loading before. Also, what is the best way to get the install to work (when preparing the hard drive)?

The boot partition never goes into the sda. When you say sda - it means the MBR of the drive. your boot partition should still be sda1 sda2 etc. But you should install grub in sda to allow Grub to control which OS you want to login to.

I would advise you not to create a separate /boot since you don't really need one. Partitioning is very subjective so it depends on the individual's needs. Here's what I would recommend.
sda1 - XP 50 GB
sda2 - NTFS storage 80 GB
sda3 - / 10-20 GB (any between 10-20 is fine for root)
sda4 - /home rest of the HDD
sda5 - swap (>= RAM size if you want to use suspend and hibernate. I never use that, so my swap is never more than 512MB)

during the install when it asks you where you want to install GRUB, select "sda" --- NOT sda1 sda2 etc.

Last edited by Inxsible (2010-07-12 15:14:13)

DSpider · 2010-07-12 21:15:19

If Windows XP starts when you start the computer it means GRUB isn't installed on the MBR. You can do this several ways. The internet (and the forum) is full of advice on how to do this. My advice would be to install WinXP first (on the first partition, obviously, because that's how Microsoft wants it) and Arch second. That way the Arch installer will deal with GRUB lastly.

Oh, and why 50 GB for XP if you plan oh having an 80 GB drive D: ? Here's a thought...

▪ sda1: NTFS 10 GB (and I'm being generous since I'm thinking using TinyXP you can probably get away with 3 GB, Program FIles, pagefile and temp folders on D: and maybe even 2 GB but it's streching it. Maybe MicroXP)

▪ sda2: ext4 10 GB (again, I'm being generous since you can get away with much less if you keep packages to a minimum)

▪ sda3: 100 GB NTFS (you'll need a drive D: when it's time to reinstall Windows, and trust me, that time will come)

▪ sda4: rest of the HDD as ext4. Or better yet format it as ext3 with inode 128, so you can load it in WinXP through Ext2Fsd, even as Read-Only if you wish). This partition will probably be used for storage so it's ok if it's not ext4 or btrfs... ext3 is a fine, mature filesystem. Reliable.

There are only 4 in my scheme and you can make them all Primary partitions
(sda1-2-3-4 instad of sda1-5-6-7 or some shit like that).

Notice I didn't include a boot partition nor a swap partition. You can use a swapfile (which is similar to "pagefile.sys" in Windows XP). Also, I don't feel the need for a /home partition. Especially because of the dot files and the desktop files... It's kinda similar to the Local Settings, Application Data folders in Windows XP. But that's just me. I like having the data partition clutter free of dot files and configs and shit.

Last edited by DSpider (2010-07-12 21:30:04)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-12 15:07:48

Dual Boot Assistance

#2 2010-07-12 15:10:26

Re: Dual Boot Assistance

#3 2010-07-12 21:15:19

Re: Dual Boot Assistance

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