[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

bdawg · 2012-09-19 21:06:28

Ok so I'm stuck trying to get my computer to dual boot windows 7 and arch. They are installed on different hard drives and I have grub 2 as the boot loader. I can't find any tutorials on how to do it with seperate hard drives I know how to do it if they are on the same hard drive. Also I want windows on the "first" hard drive how do I check to see which one it considers the first?

Last edited by bdawg (2012-09-21 23:15:37)

karol · 2012-09-19 21:12:40

Maybe this will help a bit:
* https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … _scripting
* https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manua … 02dloading
* https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manua … ice-syntax

bdawg · 2012-09-19 22:03:25

Sweet thank you ya it helped a little but I'm still confused on the topic of first and second disk. How do I tell if my windows is on the first disk (which is what I want it to be) and if not how would I make it so it is?

Arctus · 2012-09-20 10:43:28

It doesn't matter which one is on the first disc, or if they're on the same. Grub doesn't care. If you want help solving your issue, post specific problems or your grub.cfg file.

DSpider · 2012-09-20 11:12:38

It has to do with the physical locations of your drives (i.e. on which SATA ports on the motherboard they are connected). Those reflect /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc., while /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc are partitions. The Beginners' Guide covers this a bit (link).

Even if you install Arch on /dev/sdb, you can set the BIOS boot order so that this drive (by model or brand name whatever) boots first.

There's no point in partitioning /dev/sda like this guy did. You don't even need a separate boot partition.

Last edited by DSpider (2012-09-20 11:14:19)

drobole · 2012-09-20 12:15:38

bdawg wrote:

Sweet thank you ya it helped a little but I'm still confused on the topic of first and second disk. How do I tell if my windows is on the first disk (which is what I want it to be) and if not how would I make it so it is?

You can inspect your disks with these commands

# lsblk -f /dev/sda

# lsblk -f /dev/sdb

The disk with windows will typically have partitions with NTFS filesystems on them.

If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.
I'm not sure this is what you really want to do, but it should be possible

DSpider · 2012-09-20 12:36:48

drobole wrote:

If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.

Not from the BIOS. He would need to physically open up the computer and switch the cables between them (or add another drive).

There's no actual performance increase in changing this order. Performance increase is when you have the partitions as close to the beginning of a HDD as possible, where the platters spin faster (basic mechanics, not to be confused with CD/DVD, which are being written from the inside-out to prevent errors after extended usage), and it especially doesn't apply to SSDs whatsoever.

Last edited by DSpider (2012-09-20 12:37:13)

drobole · 2012-09-20 12:48:32

DSpider wrote:

drobole wrote:
If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.
Not from the BIOS. He would need to physically open up the computer and switch the cables between them (or add another drive).
There's no actual performance increase in changing this order. Performance increase is when you have the partitions as close to the beginning of a HDD as possible, where the platters spin faster (basic mechanics, not to be confused with CD/DVD, which are being written from the inside-out to prevent errors after extended usage), and it especially doesn't apply to SSDs whatsoever.

You may be right about that. I remember I had to do this a while back but I probably switched the cables. It also messed up the drive mapping in Windows 98 if I remember correctly.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-09-19 21:06:28

[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#2 2012-09-19 21:12:40

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#3 2012-09-19 22:03:25

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#4 2012-09-20 10:43:28

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#5 2012-09-20 11:12:38

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#6 2012-09-20 12:15:38

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#7 2012-09-20 12:36:48

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

#8 2012-09-20 12:48:32

Re: [SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

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