Arch Linux

drvlad

Member

Registered: 2014-12-28

Posts: 1

converting my system to uefi/gpt boot running arch and win7

Hello.  I've recently purchased a new hard drive, and now I need to reorganize my partition scheme.  I have a UEFI motherboard, so I'm going to go full uefi/gpt for booting and partitioning.  I've done my research this morning, and I believe I know what I need to do.  I just want to run it by the forum to see if there's something I am overlooking.

I have one 250gb sata hdd and one 3TB sata hdd.  The 250 hdd with have one fat32 UEFI partition for booting and the rest will be an ext4 partition for Arch.  The 3TB hdd will have a 250gb NTFS partition for Win7, 250gb free space for experimentation, and the rest will be a large NTFS data partition.

The 250gb hdd currently has an arch and a windows install on MBR partitions and is booting legacy style.  I intend to use dd to overwrite the first sector, so that no bootcode remains in the ProtectiveMBR that may confuse my firmware into trying to load.  I'll then partition/format the UEFI Fat32 partition and the Arch ext4 partition. 

The 3tb hdd is already GPT and has never had an MBR written on it, so I'll simply need to re partition and format it. 250gb NTFS partition for Windows, 250gb free, 2.5tb NTFS data.   I'll install Windows first so that I don't have to setup GRUB twice.  And this is what concerns me.   When I install Windows, it's not going to have a UEFI partition available to it on the drive it's being installed to.   I'm concerned it might 'go rogue' and write bootcode to the ProtectiveMBR for one of those hybird BIOS-GPT boots.  Or will it see the UEFI partition on the other disc and write its thing there?  That would be fine, since I'll overwrite that when I install arch.

Naturally after that I'll install Arch , setup grub on the uefi partition, and hopefully all is well.  Again my only concern is what if the windows install writes bootcode to the protectivembr and then I still end up booting strait to windows.  I suppose in that case I could just overwrite the first sector with 0's again.

Anyway, I just wanted to see if I'm overlooking anything or if I'm just being paranoid.  I only just learned about UEFI, so my understanding of it is still a bit fuzzy.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 7,744

Website

Re: converting my system to uefi/gpt boot running arch and win7

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Windows will either just install in non-EFI mode or make its own EFI system partition on the hard drive to which it is installed.

Install Windows first then load the live Arch .iso & run `parted -l` to see what the installer has done with your disk and work from there.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library … 85%29.aspx

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Are you infected with Wetiko?

nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,367

Re: converting my system to uefi/gpt boot running arch and win7

No problem with Arch on the changeover, kernel acts like it's the same, but if Windows already installed, it will have to be reinstalled.

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I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

the_shiver

Member

Registered: 2013-03-27

Posts: 130

Re: converting my system to uefi/gpt boot running arch and win7

there's no need to reinstall windows
the mbr-gpt conversion can be done w/o data loss with e.g. gdisk and what's left to do in regards to windows is to install it's bootoader onto the ESP

but as always when messing with partitions - keep a backup at hand

TheSaint

Member

From: my computer

Registered: 2007-08-19

Posts: 1,523

Re: converting my system to uefi/gpt boot running arch and win7

Which windows do you have?
If windows installation starts first, you'll be able to correct its doing, to suite Arch booting mode. However in the ESP you may have any kind of boot loader / manager you'll like.
Later Grub will guide to the windows boot loader and then your done.
The only problem for certain version of windows is the kind of the partition. E.g. Vista doesn't accept logical partition. AFAIK.
I have MBR and UEFI on my USB HD. I presume they can coexist, it's just a matter of bus, USB or SATA, internal or external doesn't matter.

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do it good first, it will be faster than do it twice the saint