Arch Linux

Kiwon Um

Member

Registered: 2014-07-25

Posts: 4

[SOLVED] dual boot with multiple EFIs in multiple ESPs

Dear Arch users,

I'm wondering how to add the boot entry for Windows that exists in other ESP into my Linux boot manager (gummiboot)?

I installed Arch Linux in my laptop that has pre-installed Windows 8. In order to conserve the original ESP (used for Window), I intentionally generated a new ESP for Arch as follows:
/dev/sda1 ntfs Windows RE tools
/dev/sda2 vfat ESP (for Windows)
/dev/sda3
/dev/sda4 ntfs Windows
/dev/sda5 ntfs reserved for system recovery
/dev/sda6 ntfs reserved for system recovery
/dev/sda7 vfat ESP (for Arch)
/dev/sda8 xfs  Arch (/)
/dev/sda9 xfs  Arch (/home)

My gummiboot entry for Arch is as follows:
title          Arch Linux
linux          /vmlinuz-linux
initrd         /initramfs-linux.img
options        root=/dev/sda8 rw

Both OSs are working well (I tested both Linux Boot Manager and Windows Boot Manager from my BIOS menu).

I just want to select each OS using the gummiboot manager (or other manager) not using the BIOS menu. To the best of my knowledge, the gummiboot manager can automatically check for Windows Boot Manager as long as both boot managers are installed in the same ESP, but it is not my case.

I would appreciate it if you give me a comment.
Thank you.

Last edited by Kiwon Um (2014-07-25 16:40:07)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 8,776

Website

Re: [SOLVED] dual boot with multiple EFIs in multiple ESPs

Hello Kiwon Um, welcome to Arch
As you say, gummiboot will only check for boot images in the same partition --- I think you should have shared the EFI system partition generated by Windows.
AFAIK, Windows uses a slightly different directory structure so it should be safe to mix them.
I think GRUB will boot up from other partitions, I have not tried...
If you want to continue with gummiboot (I prefer it), then remount /boot as /dev/sda2 in /etc/fstab & copy (-r) over the contents from the live environment.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

surfatwork

Member

Registered: 2012-01-05

Posts: 137

Re: [SOLVED] dual boot with multiple EFIs in multiple ESPs

If you can specify the .efi file to execute in your UEFI (I can on my HP), then you can try refind. just point it to execute refindx86.efi and it should work

Kiwon Um

Member

Registered: 2014-07-25

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] dual boot with multiple EFIs in multiple ESPs

Thank you for your kind welcoming and all comments.
I installed GRUB and it automatically generated the entry for Windows Boot Manager. Now I can boot each OS from the GRUB bootloader.

Thank you again.