Arch Linux

Swashy

Member

Registered: 2012-11-02

Posts: 22

Reinstall a Win 7 MBR onto a disk with windows/arch from Arch?

This is a crazy scenario.
I have a working arch install setup like so:

sda1: 100Mb. Originally win7 mbr, but I overwrote it with grub, whoops. Did it with this command: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … ll_to_disk

unallocated: 15Mb Extra space for installing grub onto after fixing MBR.

sda2: Windows 7

sda5 & 6: Arch and linux-swap

So my plan was to restore the Windows 7 MBR with a win7 install usb, but thats not happening. (because of an ambiguous error message that most people haven't been able to figure out. Trust me, I tried: http://tinyurl.com/o3j4vah Thanks Microshit!)

Now I got this crazy idea to install a windows 7 bootloader onto /dev/sda, the drive I'm currently working on, which this dude says will work: http://robert.penz.name/221/mini-howto- … nt-page-2/

I'm planning on using the AUR package ms-sys to do this.

So guys, will I regret this? Will I be able to restore grub after doing so?

Last edited by Swashy (2014-01-27 02:20:48)

Swashy

Member

Registered: 2012-11-02

Posts: 22

Re: Reinstall a Win 7 MBR onto a disk with windows/arch from Arch?

The folks on IRC say to try shift + f10 in the Windows RE to manually enter the commands to fix the MBR. I'll try that and see how it goes, and if I can get grub reinstalled.... will be back with an update.

edit: That did not work because I think the win7 usb did not succesfully copy over (as 99.999% of windows usb installs go). I'm led to believe this because if I tried to continue the Windows 7 installation, it could not find install.wim or something like that. I'll try it again  with a different .iso to see if it works, and then maybe consider overwriting the mbr from arch...

Last edited by Swashy (2014-01-27 04:29:45)

Xacky

Member

Registered: 2011-08-26

Posts: 27

Re: Reinstall a Win 7 MBR onto a disk with windows/arch from Arch?

Windows bootloader doesn't work (well) with different operating systems.

Its probely best to write a new MBR for windows from your Windows cd using fixboot and fixmb this will overwrite your Arch-MBR. After that use your Arch-cd to Chroot your Arch installation after that just install Grub. You can use Os-prober it will find your Windows Windows installation an put it in your Grub-config.

Last edited by Xacky (2014-01-28 14:44:20)