Arch Linux

Painguy

Member

Registered: 2014-08-20

Posts: 15

[SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

Hi guys. I recently bought a new laptop, and decided to run Arch Linux and Windows 8.1. I installed Windows 8.1 first as recommended by the beginners guide, and then installed Arch Linux. I made sure UEFI was enabled in my BIOS, and made sure everything was on a GPT partition. The install itself went fine. My laptop loads grub, and Arch Linux shows up and boots, but there is no option to boot into Windows 8.1. The only way I can boot into Windows 8.1 is by accessing my motherboard, and choosing to launch the windows boot manager instead of the grub launcher. How can I get Windows 8.1 to show up in grub? Thanks in advance guys.

Last edited by Painguy (2014-08-20 20:19:37)

alezost

Member

Registered: 2013-10-17

Posts: 61

Re: [SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

Perhaps you did not install os-prober (see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub#Dual-booting).

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: [SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

It rather sounds as though you are mixing UEFI and bios booting.  I don't think that grub in the MBR can chainload the windows boot manager in the ESP.  If this is the case, you should convert your Arch installation to UEFI and just use that.  Once you wrap your head around UEFI (and assuming your firmware's implementation of UEFI isn't wonky), it really makes things quite simple.

Painguy

Member

Registered: 2014-08-20

Posts: 15

Re: [SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

-----------Edit------------------
Yeah just ran this after installing os prober
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
and it works now. Sorry for the crazy posts guys. Thanks for the suggestions and help.

Yeah I'm sure I'm doing something wrong lol. I did not install OS-Prober. I think that's where the issue is. I'm missing the menu entry in grub.cfg right? Do I just run os prober or do I have to manually edit grub.cfg.

If that's not the case then here is what I did up until now. What I did was start with a blank SSD drive. I used cgdisk to make the disk use a GPT partitioning scheme. I installed windows 8.1 and checked in windows to make sure it boots into UEFI-GPT mode and it does.  I then installed arch linux using the beginners guide. I made sure to use cgdisk to create any extra partitions, and installed GRUB to the efi partition that windows had created ( I did not format this partition ). I then finished the installation and rebooted, and Grub only shows arch linux. I don't think I'm dealing with anything MBR related. I made sure I used the GPT partitioning scheme....i think lol.

Last edited by Painguy (2014-08-20 06:53:33)

carbohydrates

Member

Registered: 2014-07-19

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

In that case, want to mark your post [SOLVED]?

Last edited by carbohydrates (2014-08-20 18:39:20)

cris9288

Member

Registered: 2013-01-07

Posts: 348

Re: [SOLVED]Arch Linux, and Windows 8.1 Dual Boot issue

-----------Edit------------------
Yeah just ran this after installing os prober
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
and it works now. Sorry for the crazy posts guys. Thanks for the suggestions and help.

Yeah I'm sure I'm doing something wrong lol. I did not install OS-Prober. I think that's where the issue is. I'm missing the menu entry in grub.cfg right? Do I just run os prober or do I have to manually edit grub.cfg.

If that's not the case then here is what I did up until now. What I did was start with a blank SSD drive. I used cgdisk to make the disk use a GPT partitioning scheme. I installed windows 8.1 and checked in windows to make sure it boots into UEFI-GPT mode and it does.  I then installed arch linux using the beginners guide. I made sure to use cgdisk to create any extra partitions, and installed GRUB to the efi partition that windows had created ( I did not format this partition ). I then finished the installation and rebooted, and Grub only shows arch linux. I don't think I'm dealing with anything MBR related. I made sure I used the GPT partitioning scheme....i think lol.

All you need to do is run os-prober then run grub-mkconfig. It should pick up Windows at that point.