Arch Linux

ancestralelf

Member

Registered: 2010-06-05

Posts: 12

[SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

Hi there I'm new on Arch and I need help as a newbie of course
So , I installed arch following carefully the wiki but I got a problem on the grub windows line.
This is my fdisk -l

Disco /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 byte

255 testine, 63 settori/tracce, 60801 cilindri
Unità = cilindri di 16065 * 512 = 8225280 byte
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Identificativo disco: 0x7311e39a

Dispositivo Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          26      203776    7  HPFS/NTFS
La partizione 1 non termina al limite del cilindro.
/dev/sda2              27       46093   370033177+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           59148       60802    13286400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           46094       59147   104856193    5  Esteso
/dev/sda5           46094       55815    78091902   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           55816       59019    25736098+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           59020       59147     1028128+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

and this is my menu.lst

# Config file for GRUB - The GNU GRand Unified Bootloader
# /boot/grub/menu.lst

# DEVICE NAME CONVERSIONS 
#
#  Linux           Grub
# -------------------------
#  /dev/fd0        (fd0)
#  /dev/sda        (hd0)
#  /dev/sdb2       (hd1,1)
#  /dev/sda3       (hd0,2)
#

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#  for more details and different resolutions see
#  http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Framebuffer_Resolution 

# general configuration:
timeout   5
default   2
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

# boot sections follow
# each is implicitly numbered from 0 in the order of appearance below
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda6 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda6 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Windows
Title Windows Seven
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Now I dunno why when grub is loaded it shows only Arch entries! Windows is completely ignored. I've been looking around for something which could help me but unfortunately nobody seems to have my problem. The win partition should be /dev/sda2/ but why is the first one sda1 (the restore partition) flagged as boot? is grub installed there? How can I check this and eventually fix it?
Thanks
Federico

ps: as you can read english isnt my language but I hope you are going to help me anyway [

Last edited by ancestralelf (2010-06-06 08:50:14)

Thiago H

Member

Registered: 2010-06-05

Posts: 16

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

Frederico,

When you install Windows 7, it automatically creates a 100MB partition for booting, in a similar fashion that creating a separate /boot partition on linux does. Therefore, you have to use it to boot Windows 7.

To acomplish that, edit the corresponding section in your menu.lst to:
EDIT: Moreover, the reserved keywords in menu.lst are case-sensisive, so you MUST write "title", not "Title"

# (2) Windows
title Windows Seven
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Reboot and see if this solves your problem.

Good luck,
Thiago

Last edited by Thiago H (2010-06-05 23:53:34)

anonymous_user

Member

Registered: 2009-08-28

Posts: 3,059

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

FYI, for dual-booting Windows 7, don't use the "makeactive" line. Just comment it out.

sand_man

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-06-10

Posts: 2,164

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

I'm dual booting Windows 7.

Snip from my grub menu

# (3) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Not sure if it works without the makeactive line. It works as it is so I never bothered changing it.

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murffatksig

Member

From: Atl

Registered: 2004-05-17

Posts: 358

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

I had difficulty when I used the Windows 7 computer management tool to shrink a partition.  I ended up using GParted and creating 3 partitions: 1 NTFS for win7, 1 for Linux Swap, and 1 for ext4 Arch '/' partition.  Because the NTFS partition is /dev/sda1 I was able to use the default grub config (after removing the comments) and I can dual boot with ease.

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"Oh, they have the internet on computers now."

ancestralelf

Member

Registered: 2010-06-05

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

Frederico,

When you install Windows 7, it automatically creates a 100MB partition for booting, in a similar fashion that creating a separate /boot partition on linux does. Therefore, you have to use it to boot Windows 7.

To acomplish that, edit the corresponding section in your menu.lst to:
EDIT: Moreover, the reserved keywords in menu.lst are case-sensisive, so you MUST write "title", not "Title"

# (2) Windows
title Windows Seven
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Reboot and see if this solves your problem.

Good luck,
Thiago

Thank you for the quick answers.. Meh it's a bit embarrassing, I've been on linux for years and I get stuck on a case-sensitive issue.
It works!
Thanks again
Federico

ancestralelf

Member

Registered: 2010-06-05

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

UPDATE: Your posts helped me but tht didint solve my problem at all.
When I booted win it said boot manager was corrupted an I needed to fix it with win recovery cd. by the way I found the problem on myself and I ask you to put this into the wiki, because I think it's helpful.
So if you are in my situation and when you installed grub it didnt include Windows7 section in the menu.lst you should write somethink like this

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

and edit the (hd0,0) section with the partition you have win installed on. now according to my fdisk

Dispositivo Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          26      203776    7  HPFS/NTFS
La partizione 1 non termina al limite del cilindro.
/dev/sda2              27       46093   370033177+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           59148       60802    13286400    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4           46094       59147   104856193    5  Esteso
/dev/sda5           46094       55815    78091902   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           55816       59019    25736098+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           59020       59147     1028128+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

sda2 (hd0,1) is supposed to be the right partition to set in the menu.lst file. No it isn't , Windows 7 comes installed in 3 different partitions which are:
-Windows7
-System
-Recovery
If you boot Windows7 you encounter my issue, the partition to be booted is System, sda1 (hd0,0) in my case. So if your grub installation doesnt put win automatically keep this in mind.
Bye

ps: remember to correct my english mistakes

Last edited by ancestralelf (2010-06-06 13:59:05)

LoBo3268715

Member

From: WI, USA

Registered: 2012-02-23

Posts: 34

Re: [SOLVED]Grub windows7 dual boot

This solved my dual boot issue as well.

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"Linux. A big, bad, scary computer operating system known only by people with neck beards."