[SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-08 11:43:39

From the Wiki

Windows 7 x86_64 versions support booting in x86_64 UEFI mode from GPT disk only, OR in BIOS mode from MBR/msdos disk only. They do not support IA32 (x86 32-bit) UEFI boot from GPT/MBR disk, x86_64 UEFI boot from MBR/msdos disk, or BIOS boot from GPT disk.

I don't understand this. As stated in the title I have a ueif system so that means I have to create a GPT disk ? I already have a gpt disk which I confirmed by running Arch Live USB. Under type it said GPT. I don't understand this at all

However if Arch is installed in BIOS-GPT in one disk and Windows is installed in BIOS-MBR mode in another disk, then the BIOS bootloader used by Arch CAN boot the Windows in the other disk, if the bootloader itself has the ability to chainload from another disk.
Note: If Arch and Windows are dual-booting from same disk, then Arch SHOULD follow the same firmware boot mode and partitioning combination used by the installed Windows in the disk.

In the Note above it says both Arch and Windows follow the same boot mode if they are dual booting from same disk. I DO NOT want to do this. I have already decided to partition my drive with 200 Gb going to Windows and 500 Gb going to Arch. Does this mean that I should install both in different modes i.e. Arch in Bios-GPT and Windows in Bios-MBR.

The recommended way to setup a Linux/Windows dual booting system is to first install Windows, only using part of the disk for its partitions. When you have finished the Windows setup, boot into the Linux install environment where you can create additional partitions for Linux while leaving the existing Windows partitions untouched.

UEFI systems

Both Gummiboot and rEFInd autodetect Windows Boot Manager \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi and show it in their boot menu, so there is no manual config required.

For GRUB(2) follow GRUB#Windows_Installed_in_UEFI-GPT_Mode_menu_entry.

Syslinux (as of version 6.02 and 6.03-pre9) and ELILO do not support chainloading other EFI applications, so they cannot be used to chainload \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi .

Computers that come with newer versions of Windows often have secure boot enabled. You will need to take extra steps to either disable secure boot or to make your installation media compatible with secure boot.

Being a beginner should I go with Gummiboot then. GRUB made a mess last time.
Also my secure boot is NOT enabled so is that good.

I have read the FAQs, Beginner's guide, Installation Guide, Dual Boot wiki entry but I just don't understand the above concepts. But it looks this this is the main thing in dual booting. Almost everything else is doable but this I have to get right on account of what happened the last time I installed Arch without getting the above right.

Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-14 08:53:14)

bstaletic · 2014-06-08 12:20:33

1) Windows can boot from GPT partition in UEFI mode, or from MBR in legacy (BIOS) mode. Windows can not boot from GPT partition using MBR.
2) In case you have two disks (one with Arch, and one with Windows) where Arch is booting from GPT using BIOS, and windows uses MBR with BIOS you will be able to boot only if bootloader supports booting an os from a different HDD.
2.1) Note says if both OS-es are on the same HDD Arch should be installed the same way Windows is (either GPT/UEFI, or MBR/BIOS).
3) Keep Secure boot off. As for making the choise, I'd go with GRUB because I'm familiar with it. Use which.ever suits you and your needs.

Mr.Elendig · 2014-06-08 12:53:56

Use uefi, don't use legacy boot. GPT all the things! Mount the $esp as /boot (systemd will actually do this for you automagically) and use gummiboot as your bootloader.

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-08 14:27:49

Mr.Elendig wrote:

Use uefi, don't use legacy boot. GPT all the things! Mount the $esp as /boot (systemd will actually do this for you automagically) and use gummiboot as your bootloader.

By $esp you mean EFI system partition ?

=> /boot/efi/EFI ESP formatted FAT32

On opensuse this is my partition table. You are saying I should mount the first partition as /boot right? Please tell me what would be the right size for it?
NOTE : I will be creating a new partition table as I stated above. So this question and the table below is just to make things clear.
# Start End Size Type Name
1 2048 321535 156M EFI System primary
2 321536 4530175 2G Microsoft basic primary
3 4530176 46475263 20G Microsoft basic primary
4 46475264 1465147391 676.5G Microsoft basic primary

Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-08 15:16:10)

bstaletic · 2014-06-08 15:27:26

Yes he ment EFI system partition, and yes mount it as /boot. My /boot is 200MB but the occupied space is only 40MB.

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-08 16:10:59

bstaletic wrote:

Yes he ment EFI system partition, and yes mount it as /boot. My /boot is 200MB but the occupied space is only 40MB.

Ok thanks.

I understand it now. It was the only thing I could not understand. Last time my installation went bad. All I could see is grub giving some error. No longer I could boot into my Arch and I think this EFI thing was causing all the problem.

Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-09 13:00:13)

bstaletic · 2014-06-08 16:20:09

Have you rebooted successfully? If everything works put [SOLVED] in the beginning of the thread title,

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 12:59:46

bstaletic wrote:

Have you rebooted successfully? If everything works put [SOLVED] in the beginning of the thread title,

Sorry not solved. I edited the comment. What I meant is I understand the installation process. I am though still running into problem when actually applying this understanding practically.

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=159630

This is the problem I am facing right now.

Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-09 13:02:09)

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 13:03:54

I ran cgdisk from opensuse just to look at my current partition table but cgdisk did not work with Arch Installation medium and gave the error

cgdisk - Could not load from '/dev/sda' Aborting!

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 13:08:56

These are my fdisk -l and sgdisk -v /dev/sda output from Opensuse that is currently installed in my laptop.

linux-lctq:/home/archer # fdisk -l
WARNING: fdisk GPT support is currently new, and therefore in an experimental phase. Use at your own discretion.

Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes, 1465149168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk label type: gpt


#         Start          End    Size  Type            Name
 1         2048       321535    156M  EFI System      primary
 2       321536      4530175      2G  Microsoft basic primary
 3      4530176     46475263     20G  Microsoft basic primary
 4     46475264   1465147391  676.5G  Microsoft basic primary

and

linux-lctq:/home/archer # sgdisk -v /dev/sda

No problems found. 3757 free sectors (1.8 MiB) available in 2
segments, the largest of which is 2014 (1007.0 KiB) in size.

I'll post the ones I get when I boot from Arch in a few minutes from my other machine.

Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-09 13:13:07)

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 16:38:28

bstaletic wrote:

Have you rebooted successfully? If everything works put [SOLVED] in the beginning of the thread title,

Mr.Elendig wrote:

Use uefi, don't use legacy boot. GPT all the things! Mount the $esp as /boot (systemd will actually do this for you automagically) and use gummiboot as your bootloader.

This is my sgdisk -v /dev/sda output

#sgdisk -v /dev/sda output

Invalid partition data!
Verification may miss some problems or report to many!

Problem : The secondary header's self pointer indicates that it doesn't reside at the end of the disk. If you've added a disk to a RAID array, use the 'e' option on the expert's menu to adjust the secondary header's & partition table's locations. 

Problem : MBR partitions 1 and 2 overlap!
Warning! Main partition table overlaps the first partition by 64 blocks!
Tou need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.
Identified 3 problems!

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 16:39:22

The other thread I mentioned solved this problem but that person was going for MBR partitions. I am going for GPT so a little help needed here.

bstaletic · 2014-06-09 17:07:13

What tools did you use to partition the GPT disk? fdisk doesn't handle GPT very well. Instead use gdisk, which has same syntax nad commands, but is made for GPT instead of MBR.

Other than that just carefully follow wiki, and read the articles about UEFI (and anything else related and relevant), not just the beginner's guide.

Some Arch Lovin · 2014-06-09 17:26:40

bstaletic wrote:

What tools did you use to partition the GPT disk? fdisk doesn't handle GPT very well. Instead use gdisk, which has same syntax nad commands, but is made for GPT instead of MBR.
Other than that just carefully follow wiki, and read the articles about UEFI (and anything else related and relevant), not just the beginner's guide.

Something known as GNU Parted. gdisk did not work either.

You think Gparted live CD will work?

jasonwryan · 2014-06-09 17:31:03

Some Arch Lovin wrote:

Something known as GNU Parted. gdisk did not work either.

This is not an error message: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

Archer61 · 2014-06-11 13:04:40

A few issues with the dual boot setup

Hello again, I lost my dual factor authentication grid from lastpass. Opensuse was acutally overwriting new pdf files over my old pdf files so now that grid pdf is actually an Arch cheat cheet with the name last_pass_grid.pdf. And the gmail account I used to register to Arch forums is also in last pass.
This is why I created another account. I am some arch lovin.

The installation went smoothly but I could not dual boot Windows7 with Arch because my Win7 image is not UEFI bootable so had to dual boot win8(not a fan at all) and arch.
Almost everything is working correctly. I have a few issues that aren't affecting how the system is working but they still need sorting out.

I'll do them one at a time but I want to know from the admins if I should start a new thread? Because in a way this thread accomplished it job i.e. win7 and arch dual booting in uefi system.

If the answer is yes I should create a new thread depending upon the issue then I will do that but in case its a no since I have only 2-3 problems I am going to ask help for the first one.
-------------
My gummiboot is not working on startup. I have to press f12 and use bios booting menu to boot. The problem with that is if I put Windows at the top of the boot priority the bios does not show F12 and F2 at the time of booting up so I can't access the boot menu. I have to boot into Windows and crash it by holding the power button and then the F12 options shows up and I am able to boot into Arch. If I put Arch at the top then Windows keeps restoring back to an earlier version due to start up options.

NOTE : I can't be sure but one it did work(only once). I checked the images online to compare with what I saw and its very similar. An all black screen with three bootloading options
Windows
Arch
Opensuse(don't know why I created a completely new GPT partition table)

This is what I did while installing Gummiboot

# mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
# pacman -S gummiboot
# gummiboot install

I tried going through the gummiboot to see if I can do something but it very difficult to comprehend as a beginner. All I get is the characters gummiboot understands but thats all.

Last edited by Archer61 (2014-06-11 13:48:56)

Archer61 · 2014-06-11 13:24:22

Also the contents of loader.conf are

#timeout 3
default b57a30f449264e73ba42de24e2e451c2-*

And my boot folder contains the EFI folder. EFI contains boot, gummiboot and microsoft. The Wiki says Gummiboot will automatically check for "Windows Boot Manager" and then gives the path to the windows bootloader. That path is correct in my case. EFI is mounted on boot and everything checks out.

/var/log only has pacman and xorg logs so....

Last edited by Archer61 (2014-06-11 13:29:38)

Archer61 · 2014-06-12 07:08:20

Never mind I created a new thread.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-06-08 11:43:39

[SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#2 2014-06-08 12:20:33

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#3 2014-06-08 12:53:56

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#4 2014-06-08 14:27:49

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#5 2014-06-08 15:27:26

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#6 2014-06-08 16:10:59

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#7 2014-06-08 16:20:09

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#8 2014-06-09 12:59:46

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#9 2014-06-09 13:03:54

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#10 2014-06-09 13:08:56

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#11 2014-06-09 16:38:28

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#12 2014-06-09 16:39:22

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#13 2014-06-09 17:07:13

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#14 2014-06-09 17:26:40

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#15 2014-06-09 17:31:03

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#16 2014-06-11 13:04:40

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#17 2014-06-11 13:24:22

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

#18 2014-06-12 07:08:20

Re: [SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

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