Arch Linux

broi

Member

From: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Registered: 2011-12-10

Posts: 127

[SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

I know how to Dual Boot Win and Arch but only when Windows is installed first. Since I dont want to delete my current Arch system, I want to hear from you what to do..
Only issue I know it will happen is MBR will reset. So, I wont be able to select between two OSes -> I don't know how to make GRUB mbr.. Is that only issue I will face or?

Thanks

Last edited by broi (2012-05-30 18:44:17)

x33a

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 4,587

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

That's the only issue you'll face and it can be easily fixed with the arch live cd.

Take a look here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_Root

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

Generally no need to chroot, just reinstall grub from the live cd.

Installing the GRUB bootloader may need to be done from within a chrooted environment (i.e. from installed environment via a separate medium) for cases like RAID configurations or if you forgot/broke your GRUB installation. You will need to Change Root from a LiveCD or another Linux installation to do so.

broi

Member

From: Bosnia & Herzegovina

Registered: 2011-12-10

Posts: 127

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

Thank you!!

I will first try only reinstalling GRUB (much simplier), if that not help, I will chroot.

Just one more thing, I have 4 partitions.. /, /boot, /home and swap... I cant make anymore primary partitions which is required for Windows...Hmm

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

Linux doesn't care about extended partitions, so you can shift those. Also you can use a swapfile instead of the  swap partition.

DSpider

Member

From: Romania

Registered: 2009-08-23

Posts: 2,273

Re: [SOLVED] Installing Windows when Arch is already installed

Swap is overrated. Well... if you have over 1 GB of RAM, that is.

RAM is cheap. Get some.

Alternatively, if you have Arch on one HDD (HDD, not partition) and you install Windows on another HDD, you can mess with the boot order in the BIOS and not have to worry about the MBR again.

But yeah, fixing the MBR is not so difficult. It can be a little intimidating, yes. What I recommend you do is only use ~20 GB or so for Windows, with all your data partitions being EXT4 (Linux partitions) instead of NTFS. I remember once I was too lazy to fix the MBR after I reinstalled Windows and I was stuck on Windows XP for 8 months! Just couldn't be bothered, lol. Then when I eventually did got to fixing it, it felt like a breath of fresh air when I suddenly had 800 GB available on Linux. Think about it... I had been using a meagre 20 GB partition to store everything... I think I ran out of space in the first couple of weeks or so, with all the porn and whatnot. Because of this I'm not using Windows as my main OS ever again. I'm hooked.

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"How to Succeed with Linux"

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