Arch Linux

Dheart

Member

From: Sofia, Bulgaria

Registered: 2006-10-26

Posts: 956

Dual boot question

I have been running arch in the last 6 months on my 30 GB secondary HDD and now I decided to swich hdds:
Up until now my primary 80 GB contained Windows and my secondary - Arch. Now I formated my both hdd-s and started installing Windows on the second (My parents still use win ) (The first had RAW filesystem on it.)
However setup didn't let me install Windows on the second hdd until it had a "Suitable" filesystem to write on the primary hdd so I was forced to create a 15 mb NTFS boot drive (Yea, I know that's very lame...) on the hdd I decided to format in ReiserFS. So my question is:
What files does windows store on the primary hdd? Its bootloader? And more importantly will windows be able to install if create EXT2 boot partition (Will it be able to write its bootloader on it)?
Also (since grub boots windows just by chainloading) If I install windows and then format the boot partition and install grub will grub be able to boot windows?

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My victim you are meant to be
No, you cannot hide nor flee
You know what I'm looking for
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kumico

Member

Registered: 2007-09-28

Posts: 224

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Re: Dual boot question

windows can be picky about being on the slave drive ,, i think it'd be best to swap the drives i,e via jumpers so the bigger one is the slave and install linux on there .. windows only needs the partition to which it was installed ,,

these are the steps id take

swap drive functions (master/slave)
install windows on master like it wants
install linux on slave make boot partition // whatever you need
install grub to the mbr of the master
chainload windows as normal

Dheart

Member

From: Sofia, Bulgaria

Registered: 2006-10-26

Posts: 956

Re: Dual boot question

And then after I've installed windows on the master linux on the slave, can I swap again drive positions?
(My 30GB's very very old and often has issues with overheating, bad sectors and sometimes it refuses to start at all (not being detected by BIOS) So I don't think it's a relieble choice for boot partition.

---

My victim you are meant to be
No, you cannot hide nor flee
You know what I'm looking for
Pleasure your torture, I will endure...

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

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Re: Dual boot question

And then after I've installed windows on the master linux on the slave, can I swap again drive positions?
(My 30GB's very very old and often has issues with overheating, bad sectors and sometimes it refuses to start at all (not being detected by BIOS) So I don't think it's a relieble choice for boot partition.

I'm pretty sure you can't - that'll just confuse Windows all to heck.  To make sure I have these things right, I always install Windows to the first partition on my master drive - it's been weird in other configurations for me.