Questions about Dual booting

Shadowmeph · 2008-11-09 21:39:54

I have two sata hard drives on the first hard drive is Win xp pro x64 and on the second drive I am going to be installing arch I am wondering how or where I put the /boot partition so I won't lose the wp boot.

sand_man · 2008-11-09 22:15:21

It shouldn't matter where the /boot partition goes but you may need to install grub on the MBR. (Someone please confirm this)

Ruckus · 2008-11-09 22:32:28

Put all of arch on the second drive (/boot and all) partitioned how ever you want. When it comes time to install Grub, you would install it to the MBR of the main drive though. (e.g, you probably have /dev/sda (windows xp drive) and /dev/sdb (archilnux). Install grub to /dev/sda and it should auto recognize windows and arch, and then you will be able to pick which you want to boot to after you start your computer.

MoonSwan · 2008-11-09 22:32:48

Where the boot partition resides, as Sandman pointed out, is irrelevant. Linux will find it no matter where it is put and it applies only to linux, as windows (any flavour) will see your linux partitions only as "unknown partition"'s. Rather stupid of windows but there it is.

During your installation, you will be given the choice of -

1) place Grub (or Lilo) on the MBR of either hard drive, effectively over writing that drives current MBR. This allows Grub to be your boot manager for all OS's.

or

2) Put grub on your linux drives /boot partition by itself. This leaves windows MBR/NTBootloader intact but you'll have to select which drive to boot up when you start the computer itself.

Any more information you wish can be found by searching this forum or the wiki.

creslin · 2008-11-09 22:46:14

sand_man wrote:

you may need to install grub on the MBR

Ruckus wrote:

When it comes time to install Grub, you would install it to the MBR of the main drive though

MoonSwan wrote:

place Grub (or Lilo) on the MBR of either hard drive

These will wipe out the xp bootloader. Since you said you want to keep your win boot intact, the easiest way to preserve it is with MoonSwan's 2nd option. Install to the other sata drive and adjust your bios to prioritize it accordingly.

Last edited by creslin (2008-11-09 22:46:53)

Gauvenator · 2008-11-09 22:59:53

What you should do is unplug your windows harddrive while you install arch. Then when you are finished and plug the other disk back in, make sure that arch's harddrive is the first disk in the bios. Then you can configure your /boot/grub/menu.lst to load the windows bootloader off the other drive.

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

the "map" part tricks windows into thinking it is the first disk.

this will keep the windows bootloader intact

Last edited by Gauvenator (2008-11-09 23:01:24)

Shadowmeph · 2008-11-09 23:14:53

thanks everyone its been a while since I have installed Arch

stringchopper · 2009-03-03 20:54:17

Gauvenator wrote:

What you should do is unplug your windows harddrive while you install arch. Then when you are finished and plug the other disk back in, make sure that arch's harddrive is the first disk in the bios. Then you can configure your /boot/grub/menu.lst to load the windows bootloader off the other drive.
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
the "map" part tricks windows into thinking it is the first disk.
this will keep the windows bootloader intact

I added the above to the menu.lst after
1. install windows on 1st sata drive
2. unplug 1st sata drive
3. install linux on 2nd sata drive (now the only drive, sda)
4. power down, reconnect 1st sata (windows), reboot
5. BIOS seems to have figured out that 2nd sata drive should be preferred in boot order (this surprised me, I hooked all cables up in same order)
6. boot into linux, modify /boot/grub/menu.lst, with above instructions

Now, when I choose the winxp grub option, I get errors about missing ntoskrnl.exe. Always!

Funny part is, I can put the WinXP CD in (bios configured to boot there first), let it run, and it will say "press any key to boot from cd...". I just let it run, and it loads windows normally. Apparently, the CD knows how to find ntoskrnel, but grub doesn't ???

While I was in windows, I confirmed the boot.ini is multi(0) disk(0) rdisk(0) partition(1).

Any ideas what to do to get beyond this grub/ntoskrnl.exe error are appreciated.

Thanks
brian

EDIT: the exact error I get when trying to boot windows from grub is this:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

EDIT2: for the heck of it, I decided to boot into windows (by inserting winxp cd, and no pressing any key to boot the cd), and I added other options to the boot.ini
I added several lines for different partitions (though there should only be the one partition, which windows starts counting at "1")
None of the options for booting partitions 2 through 7 worked. But the trying partition 0 produced a similar error, but this time with "hal.dll":

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

EDIT3:
I disconnected the linux sata drive, and windows will boot up normally.

Last edited by stringchopper (2009-03-03 21:54:18)

Ranguvar · 2009-03-03 23:05:43

Uh-oh.

Try mounting the partition you think has Windows in Linux. Make sure everything's still there.

stringchopper · 2009-03-03 23:28:48

yes, it's still there.

perbh · 2009-03-04 13:50:49

imho - by far the easiest way if you want to keep your dos-loader intact, do a 'dd if=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1 of=some-filename' and then proceed to use grub for all your booting needs. grub will easily boot (at least linux) from almost _anything_ that's been discovered by the bios.
Then if you want to set it all back again, ie remove the grub in mbr, then just copy the 446-byte file back to /dev/sda again.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-11-09 21:39:54

Questions about Dual booting

#2 2008-11-09 22:15:21

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#3 2008-11-09 22:32:28

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#4 2008-11-09 22:32:48

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#5 2008-11-09 22:46:14

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#6 2008-11-09 22:59:53

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#7 2008-11-09 23:14:53

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#8 2009-03-03 20:54:17

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#9 2009-03-03 23:05:43

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#10 2009-03-03 23:28:48

Re: Questions about Dual booting

#11 2009-03-04 13:50:49

Re: Questions about Dual booting

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