Arch Linux

taufique

Member

Registered: 2018-09-01

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows 7 - Booting into wrong partition

Hello, I have Windows 7 preinstalled on a Dell machine. I am trying to install Archlinux alongside the Windows 7 installation. However after installation following the Archlinux Installation Guide upto Section 3.7 and then following the Archwiki containing instruction on using the Windows Vista/7/8/8.1 boot loader it is booting into the wrong partition. Following are the details of what I have done -

I have in total 4 partitions -

/dev/sda1 - NTFS - Windows system reserved partition (100MB)
/dev/sda2 - NTFS - Partition containing Windows 7 OS
/dev/sda3 - NTFS - Blank partition to store common files
/dev/sda4 - EXT4 - Linux Root Partition

I installed Syslinux boot loader into the boot partition of new Linux installation using the following commands in sequence -

# pacman -S syslinux
# mkdir /boot/syslinux
# cp /usr/lib/syslinux/bios/*.c32 /boot/syslinux/
# extlinux --install /boot/syslinux

In order to let Windows access the linux boot leader file, then I mounted the partition containing Windows OS and copied the VBR using following commands -

# mount -t ntfs3 /dev/sda2 /mnt/windows
# dd if=/dev/sda4 of=/mnt/windows/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

Then unmounted the Windows partition, exited the Linux system and got into Windows system, used bcdedit to add entry for Archlinux. I followed the following commands to do that -

> bcdedit /create /d "Archlinux" /application BOOTSECTOR
> bcdedit /set UUID device partition=c:
> bcdedit /set UUID  path \linux.bin
> bcdedit /displayorder UUID /addlast
> bcdedit /timeout 30

Now after rebooting, I can see both Archlinux and Windows option popping up for booting. But when I am booting into Archlinux, I am getting following error -

Loading ../vmlinux-linux... ok
Loading ../initramfs-linux.img... ok
Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
:: running early hook [udev]
Starting systemd-udevd version 252.5-1-arch
:: running hook [udev]
:: Triggering uevents...
:: running hook [keymap]
:: Loading keymap...done
:: performing  fsck on '/dev/sda3'
:: mounting '/dev/sda3' on real root
mount: /new_root: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'
            dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off

Looks like instead of `/dev/sda4`, where Archlinux is installed, it is trying to mount `/dev/sda3` which is an NTFS file system.

I suspected whether I mistakenly issued command -

# dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/mnt/windows/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

instead of

# dd if=/dev/sda4 of=/mnt/windows/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

because I was looking into this url and they have `/dev/sda3` in their article.
So I removed the linux.bin file, carefully redone the step `# dd if=/dev/sda4 of=/mnt/windows/linux.bin bs=512 count=1`, removed the previous bcd entry with `bcdedit /delete UUID` and added new bcd entry. However nothing is making any difference. I am still getting the same error -

:: performing  fsck on '/dev/sda3'
:: mounting '/dev/sda3' on real root
mount: /new_root: unknown filesystem type 'ntfs'
            dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
You are now being dropped into an emergency shell

I wanted to know what might be going wrong here and how can I fix it? Sorry for the long question.

Last edited by taufique (2023-02-13 17:24:45)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows 7 - Booting into wrong partition

Please share your bootloader configuration file(s). The kernel & initramfs are being found but it looks like the initramfs is searching for the root partition on the wrong device.

Disclaimer: I don't use syslinux and I've never tried to use bcdedit like that.

---

Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

taufique

Member

Registered: 2018-09-01

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot with Windows 7 - Booting into wrong partition

Please share your bootloader configuration file(s). The kernel & initramfs are being found but it looks like the initramfs is searching for the root partition on the wrong device.

I went back, took a look at the Syslinux configuration file and found that /dev/sda3 was indeed pointed as the root partition. Changed it, regenerated boot-loader, followed all the steps I have done before to point it from the Windows boot loader. Now I can boot into the new Archlinux installation.

Thanks a ton for pointing to the right place.