[Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

Hydesdelca · 2013-12-21 07:23:57

Okay, so i've decided to move onto arch from mint because I want to gain a little more experience while at the same time creating a likable environment for daily use. Initially when installing mint, I ran into 2 specific problems: I had to boot mint with a nomodeset kernel flag until I hammered out the proprietary graphics driver issue out, and the other problem is that windows deleted its own bootloader and I had to reinstall both that to access windows, which overwrote my grub install, and grub for mint from the livecd.

This would be very problematic for me because I am not the most experienced linux user, nor do I know much about how operating systems work. What's the likelihood of either becoming an issue? Configuring all of this stuff that I've never configured before presents a unique problem that once solved will teach me a fair amount.

The main problem I see now before I start installing arch is that i'm not quite sure how to overwrite mint. My disk is already partitioned, so i'm unsure if I just have to mount the / partition and home/swap and proceed or something else. I'd love some help on this. And before someone asks, I am unable to do it on a vm right now.

Please and thanks!

Last edited by Hydesdelca (2013-12-22 03:57:33)

headkase · 2013-12-21 08:11:20

In the Beginners' Guide there is a section where you create your filesystems. Where it says:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

Replace "ext4" which your preferred format and "/dev/sdaX" (where X is for each Mint partition) with your Mint partitions. Make sure you specify the correct partitions or you run the risk of erasing your Windows partition.

Other than that just follow the guide.

Arch is a good distribution to get down and dirty with. It is expected that you are competent with Linux to begin with. If you know the basics of a shell and understand the rough layout of the general Linux filesystem and configuration files then you are ready to begin learning more with Arch.

Edit: And in the Beginners' Guide just skip the partitioning steps as your drive is already partitioned.

Edit2: Oh, and read about and install "os-prober" along with GRUB for your bootloader. That will generally pick up your Windows partitions and configure GRUB with them for you.

Last edited by headkase (2013-12-21 08:22:48)

Hydesdelca · 2013-12-21 11:03:09

thanks for the help!

I've run into a problem unfortunately. I'm chrooted atm, and my wifi has dropped for some strange reason. I need to download the bootloader but have no internet atm for some strange reason. Any fixes? Searches the forums and got no answer

headkase · 2013-12-21 12:11:59

Sorry I don't have much experience with Wifi, perhaps someone else can chime in.

Edit: one thing you can do if you don't need many packages is to download them from a different computer then mount a thumbdrive with them on your target computer and put them by themselves in a folder then in that folder do:

pacman -U *

Where "pacman" is the package mangager, "-U" tells it to install from files, and "*" tells it to install everything from the current folder.

Last edited by headkase (2013-12-21 12:14:53)

Hydesdelca · 2013-12-21 12:33:50

headkase wrote:

Sorry I don't have much experience with Wifi, perhaps someone else can chime in.
Edit: one thing you can do if you don't need many packages is to download them from a different computer then mount a thumbdrive with them on your target computer and put them by themselves in a folder then in that folder do:
pacman -U *
Where "pacman" is the package mangager, "-U" tells it to install from files, and "*" tells it to install everything from the current folder.

I got that fixed, but now i'm at another hurdle. When I run:

# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda

I get:

/usr/lib/grub/1386-pc/modinfo.sh doesn't exist, please specify --target or --directory

I feel so stupid now that I noticed I was putting a 1 in instead of an i. I am however getting another error now that I used the right command.

problem:

Sector 32 is already in use by the program `FlexNet'; avoiding it.  This software may cause boot or other problems in future.  Please ask its authors not to store data in the boot track.

My initial problem after installing was that it didn't recognize windows 7 and it wouldn't let me boot arch. To fix that, I uninstalled os-prober and manually edited /etc/grub.d/40_custom. It looks like:

#!/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.
#Arch-sda5

menuentry "Windows7"{
    insmod ntfs
    set root='(hd0,1)'
    chainloader +1
}

menuentry "Arch-sda5"{
    set root=(hd0,5)
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda5  ro quiet splash
    initrd /boot/initramfs-linux.img
}

I reinstalled udev and linux too. Any suggestions?

Last edited by Hydesdelca (2013-12-21 12:37:30)

headkase · 2013-12-21 12:42:50

If the error is accurate and you do have a piece of "FlexNet" software on your machine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Pu … ootloaders

Then you are going to have issues with your bootloader. Do you know for certain that you have such software?

Hydesdelca · 2013-12-21 22:20:29

headkase wrote:

If the error is accurate and you do have a piece of "FlexNet" software on your machine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlexNet_Pu … ootloaders
Then you are going to have issues with your bootloader. Do you know for certain that you have such software?

No I do not. I have no clue what it could be, it appears to be related to encryption software, and i've never used such software. I have gotten everything to work fine btw. Arch is up and running, and Windows hasn't imploded disastrously so I assume it's working fine too.

headkase · 2013-12-22 02:07:07

Adobe Creative Suite is known to write it's license information in the boot track too. That is one I know of that does that. It really is a bad practice, it shouldn't be done.

But, regardless, everything is ok now? If it is then edit your first post and put "[Solved]" somewhere in the title.

Hydesdelca · 2013-12-22 03:57:16

Yes, everything is okay now. Thanks for the help.

headkase · 2013-12-22 18:19:45

Right on, you're welcome.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-12-21 07:23:57

[Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#2 2013-12-21 08:11:20

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#3 2013-12-21 11:03:09

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#4 2013-12-21 12:11:59

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#5 2013-12-21 12:33:50

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#6 2013-12-21 12:42:50

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#7 2013-12-21 22:20:29

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#8 2013-12-22 02:07:07

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#9 2013-12-22 03:57:16

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

#10 2013-12-22 18:19:45

Re: [Solved]Arch dualboot w/ windows 7 on Toshiba Qosmio x505

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