Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

TheSaint · 2014-12-10 17:51:22

Is it good, now?

Hebang · 2014-12-10 17:53:49

I'm at work right now.

I'll do this when I get home (in ~6 hours)

Hebang · 2014-12-10 23:16:39

Hello!

I've installed dosfstools and efibootmgr, as suggested.

After, I've created a 550Mb partition ef00, formatted as Fat32, mounted de partitions and chroot.

Grub-install finished without errors, but this message was shown:

Efibootmgr: EFI variables are not supported on this system.

I've run grub-mkconfig, the windows partition is included in grub.cfg, but the arch-linux not.

Any hint?

Thanks!

TheSaint · 2014-12-11 07:00:36

Your PC BIOS started in legacy mode, presumably. That was why my first post proposed to to check that.
You should start arch iso in UEFI mode.

Hebang · 2014-12-11 10:48:54

TheSaint wrote:

Your PC BIOS started in legacy mode, presumably. That was why my first post proposed to to check that.
You should start arch iso in UEFI mode.

Thanks TheSaint!

I'll try this and let you know about the results.

But I think I'll need to recover my Windows partititon first.

Yesterday I've tried to install Linux Mint, just to recover the correct boot configuration, and the instalation fails in boot-install step.

Linux mint instalation used to work perfectly, so I think there must be something else wrong in my partition table

I couldn't also recover Windows yesterday because I've used a 32 bits instalation media, and my system is 64.

I think I found a 64 bits media here, so maybe today I can recover Windows and give you guys a more accurate state of the system

Thanks for all the support so far!

TheSaint · 2014-12-11 11:05:20

You may try out testdisk, to recover partition table.

Hebang · 2014-12-14 20:41:26

Hello guys!

I think Windows had indeed generated its mount partition, however when I ran cgdisk the first time, it transformed the partition table form MBR to GPT, and then the mess was made

I've decided to cleanup my partition table and started a new one from scratch.

I've already installed Windows 7 64 bits and it's working well.

Now, I've booted from the pendrive in Arch and created two more partitions (1 root partition and 1 swap);

I've formatted the root partition as EXT4 and already installed the system base on it.

The current partition table is the following:

Model: ATA Hitachi HTS72757 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 750GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End    Size    Type     File system     Flags
 1      1049kB  106MB  105MB   primary  ntfs            boot
 2      106MB   107GB  107GB   primary  ntfs
 3      107GB   215GB  107GB   primary  ext4
 4      215GB   217GB  2147MB  primary  linux-swap(v1)

Partition 1: Boot partition generated automatically in Windows instalation
Partition 2: The Windows OS partition
Partition 3: Arch root partition
Partition 4: Arch swap partition

About BIOS boot mode, it seems to be Legacy Mode, as you can see in the image below (following informations from this link):
BIOS boot mode

My question now is:
What's the exact boot mode I should use? I can't messy with my system again, so please tell me the instalation in baby steps

Thanks for your support guys, and if you need further informations; feel free to ask for.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-12-14 21:09:20

Well I did suggest the partition table had been changed in post #10...

If you have an MBR disk booting in non-EFI mode you install GRUB as per the Guide:

# grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck /dev/sda

Hebang · 2014-12-14 21:19:06

Yeah, I remember you suggested that Head_On_A_Stick

Ok, just to align:
Should I mount Windows boot partition under /mnt/boot or just mount arch root under /mnt and then run grub-install?

Thanks!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-12-14 21:26:21

ArchWiki wrote:

In case you have a UEFI motherboard, mount the EFI System Partition to /boot.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … partitions

For a non-EFI system, you do not need to mount the /boot partition (or even have a separate partition) -- as long as the root partition is mounted & pacstrap has installed the stuff you want, just run the GRUB command given above.

And make sure you run the config command specified in the Guide afterwards to write the grub.cfg
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … guide#GRUB

Blasphemist · 2014-12-16 17:20:50

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

ArchWiki wrote:
In case you have a UEFI motherboard, mount the EFI System Partition to /boot.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … partitions
For a non-EFI system, you do not need to mount the /boot partition (or even have a separate partition) -- as long as the root partition is mounted & pacstrap has installed the stuff you want, just run the GRUB command given above.
And make sure you run the config command specified in the Guide afterwards to write the grub.cfg
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … guide#GRUB

For clarification, we must remember that while most BIOS based systems have an MBR and most UEFI have GPT, some BIOS systems can have a GPT. In that case, BIOS with GPT, a boot partition is required for the following reason.
"The BIOS boot partition is a partition on a data storage device that may be used by legacy BIOS-based systems in order to boot, when the actual boot device contains a GUID Partition Table (GPT).

It must be utilized because there is not enough unused space available for the second stages of boot loaders on GPT disks. On MBR-partitioned disks, boot loaders are occupying unused sectors immediately following the Master Boot Record (MBR) for that purpose, while there is no equivalent for those on GPT disks."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS_boot_partition

I didn't follow all of this closely enough to be sure this poster has that config but I didn't want the last post to confuse anyone. A person may purchase a BIOS and GPT configured system or do it to themselves and get confused about how the boot loader works.

TheSaint · 2014-12-16 19:52:09

The wiki is well suited for these descriptions.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-12-16 20:23:12

@Blasphemist -- I appreciate that you're trying to help, but if you take the time to read through the whole thread you will see we've already covered that

Arch Linux

#26 2014-12-10 17:51:22

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#27 2014-12-10 17:53:49

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#28 2014-12-10 23:16:39

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#29 2014-12-11 07:00:36

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#30 2014-12-11 10:48:54

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#31 2014-12-11 11:05:20

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#32 2014-12-14 20:41:26

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#33 2014-12-14 21:09:20

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#34 2014-12-14 21:19:06

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#35 2014-12-14 21:26:21

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#36 2014-12-16 17:20:50

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#37 2014-12-16 19:52:09

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

#38 2014-12-16 20:23:12

Re: Dual boot system: unable to boot Windows

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