Arch Linux

justdanyul

Member

Registered: 2011-09-29

Posts: 130

refind, BOOTMGR and dual boot with two windows installs

Hi all,

I got a setup with three disks installed

- 1 Windows drive for work (that is encrypted and all that)
- 1 Windows drive for gaming
- 1 Linux drive for non 9-5 work

I use refind as my boot manager, and everything works ok in the sense that refind finds the windows bootloader and the arch drive.

If i choose the windows bootloader, the following happens
- I get presented with the windows bootmgr menu that asks me to pick between the two versions of windows installed
- If i choose the most recently installed version, all is good i boot into windows
- If i choose the other windows install, the machine reboots, and presents me with refind again, and if i press the windows icon it boots right into windows (mind you, the version of windows I pciked before the reboot, so i do, eventually get to my selection)

Does anybody have an idea what is going on, and why im seeing the reboot?

-Daniel

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,559

Re: refind, BOOTMGR and dual boot with two windows installs

This is purely a Windows issue. rEFInd loads the Windows boot manager, that's all it can do.

justdanyul

Member

Registered: 2011-09-29

Posts: 130

Re: refind, BOOTMGR and dual boot with two windows installs

This is purely a Windows issue. rEFInd loads the Windows boot manager, that's all it can do.

Are you 100% sure that its purely a windows issue though? I'm not saying it isn't I'm just finding it weird that rEFInd works differently after the reboot, I mean, the sequence of events (for clarity) is

- First boot commences, I am presented with the rEFInd menu
- I select the windows install in the refind menu
- I am presented with the windows boot manager
- I select the older windows install
- the machine reboots
- I am presented with the rEFInd menu
- I select the windows install in the refind menu
- The version of windows i selected before the reboot is loaded (im not presented with windows boot manager this time around)

I suspect what I need to is to install both version of windows with their own boot-managers, so I have two options in refind, and keep the windows bootmanager completely out of the picture.