Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

CodyFagley · 2015-06-19 18:54:00

Hello all, hopefully this is the right area for this question. I figured it could either go here or System Administration, anyways...

I want to run two internal hard drives -- both 1 TB. I already have Windows 7 installed on one of them, but it is booting from BIOS. Would I be able to keep that there and install Arch Linux on the other hard drive and boot UEFI? Is there a bootloader that could handle an operation like this, or would it cause issues down the road? Would I have to reformat my hard drives to both be installed UEFI for this to work?

Additionally, I've always heard about Windows 8 / 8.1 being UEFI capable, but is the same true for Windows 7? I have never really heard others talk about it, mostly because my friends and I all run Linux and avoid Microsoft at all costs.

Thanks!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-06-19 21:11:05

GRUB may be able to boot a non-EFI Windows system from a UEFI GNU/Linux system (I know it can boot a non-EFI GNU/Linux system from a UEFI GNU/Linux system).

You won't be able to use gummiboot though.

Windows 7 is UEFI capable as long as it is installed on a disk with a GUID partition table.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … imitations

CodyFagley · 2015-06-22 13:54:11

Thank you for the quick answer, Head_on_a_Stick!

I asked that question for my desktop, and got everything configured and it is working great! Thanks again!

But now I have gone and done something stupid with my laptop. I have been in the process of converting all my computers to Arch Linux full time. I have used Arch on my desktop for a very long time. But my laptop has still had Ubuntu on it for the last two years.

When configuring the partitions, I did something stupid. I erased the all partitions on sda (there was sda1, sda2, sda3) and replaced it with sda1 and sda2. In this case, sda1 is my boot partition and sda2 is my root partition. Everything in installation went as expected and it looked like it should have been working fine, but when I turned on my computer, it loaded to Ubuntu's grub boot. I know that because of the text on the top of the screen. I only have that 1 hard drive in my laptop, so I don't know how I missed it's bootloader. Is there any thoughts on how I can get rid of it, and make it boot to arch's bootloader?

I am using gummiboot 64bit uefi Arch and Secure-boot is disabled.

Last edited by CodyFagley (2015-06-22 13:55:37)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-06-22 13:59:02

Please post the output of:

# gdisk -l /dev/sda
# efibootmgr -v
lsblk

CodyFagley · 2015-06-22 14:04:39

lol! This community is fast.

I am at work for the next 7.5 hours but I will post the results of that when I get back home!

Thanks, again!

Arch Linux

#1 2015-06-19 18:54:00

Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

#2 2015-06-19 21:11:05

Re: Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

#3 2015-06-22 13:54:11

Re: Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

#4 2015-06-22 13:59:02

Re: Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

#5 2015-06-22 14:04:39

Re: Dual Boot UEFI / BIOS question

Board footer