Arch Linux

ratchet

Member

From: New York, NY

Registered: 2009-11-14

Posts: 12

dual booting win 7 and arch: cannot install grub to partition

I have read the arch wiki page on dual booting and several other sources on line, but I am still struggling to get this to work.

I am trying to dual boot arch and windows 7 on my lenovo ideapad s205. the machine comes with windows 7 pre-installed.

I shrank the win 7 partition and added an extended partition with 3 logical partions for /boot, swap, and /.

I am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).

I have also tried to use the windows boot loader to load arch, as described in the arch wiki page on dual booting. The problem here is that, taking this approach, I should install grub to my /boot partition, but when I try to do this, the installer only allows me to install grub to sda or sdb (the usb stick).

I have read that grub should be able to boot linux from a logical partition. Is this so?

Is there something wrong with the arch installer that it is not giving me the option of installing to a partition rather than the mbr, or is this  a problem with my partition scheme, or something else?

I am tempted to remove lenovo's recovery system, but on the other hand, I have already needed to use it several times while monkeying around with installing arch.

Thanks for any help.

UPDATE:
I now have the laptop dual-booting win 7 and arch. My solution ( adapted from here: http://helms-deep.cable.nu/~rwh/blog/?p=177) was to:

1. installed arch on the partitions I had created for it, but skipped the "install bootloader" stage.
2. in win 7, I downloaded and installed EasyBCD and made an entry for arch in it. I checked the option to "Use EasyBCD's copy of GRUB"
3. When I restarted, I got a grub error because the entry in grub's menu.lst was pointing at the wrong partitions for the kernel and root.
4. So I went back into the arch live disk, mounted the boot partition and edited menu.lst.

Now when I start the laptop, the windows boot loader starts and I can choose between win  7 and arch. when I select arch, grub4dos starts and gives me the option to start arch. this is not particularly elegant (nor is it fast), so I think this solution is less than ideal, but it does work.

I'd be interestd in any thoughts about what went wrong and what a better solution would be.

thanks.

Last edited by ratchet (2011-10-10 19:09:16)

JHeaton

Member

From: United Kingdom

Registered: 2009-05-16

Posts: 158

Re: dual booting win 7 and arch: cannot install grub to partition

II am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).

Is this a typo in your post or how it was in menu.lst? Surely it should be hd0,0 and not hda0,0? The entry I have in my menu.lst is as follows:

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

What was yours?

Last edited by JHeaton (2011-10-10 20:18:22)

ratchet

Member

From: New York, NY

Registered: 2009-11-14

Posts: 12

Re: dual booting win 7 and arch: cannot install grub to partition

[Surely it should be hd0,0 and not hda0,0?

That's right. That's a typo, not how my menu.lst was.

Last edited by ratchet (2011-10-10 22:59:25)