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phyberoptycs

Member

Registered: 2013-04-29

Posts: 7

[Solved] GRUB Install Question

Hello,

My situation is as follows:

I had to reinstall windows 7 on my dualboot system. No biggie. I also decided to completely redo the ways things were partitioned (it was a massive cluster f*ck). So now things are simplified a lot. I have already installed windows 7 on the first harddrive (sda) and I will be reinstalling arch on the second (sdb).

I understand the process just fine. I only have an issue with installing the bootloader, GRUB in this case.
I may just be misunderstanding something, but my windows partition (sda2) is type MBR. The first partition (sda1) is a system reserved one that has EFI boot files in it.
Is this partition (sda1) even necessary if I use MBR?

An image of what it looks like is here: http://i.imgur.com/PH9htP0.png

The way the two drives are partitioned (ignoring non-essential partitions):

/dev/sda  (Windows 7)

/dev/sda1 - 100 MB - System Reserved
/dev/sda2 - 450 GB - Windows 7 C Drive

/dev/sdb (Arch)

/dev/sdb1 - 45 GB - /
/dev/sdb2 - 193 GB - /home 

When I am installing the GRUB bootloader for MBR system, do I install it to sda (where the MBR is located) or sdb (where /boot is located)?
My instincts say sda because I need to overwrite the MBR, but I just want to make sure.

grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sdX
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

If I am missing something, please let me know. Thanks for the help!

Last edited by phyberoptycs (2015-02-09 02:47:08)

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,605

Website

Re: [Solved] GRUB Install Question

You need to install it to the disk that is first in the BIOS boot order. If in doubt, installing it on both shouldn't cause any problems.

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phyberoptycs

Member

Registered: 2013-04-29

Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] GRUB Install Question

Ok. I'll give it a shot and report back.

EDIT:

Alright, issue seems to have been resolved. I installed grub to sda and it works. I did have some trouble getting Windows 7 added to GRUB, but that too was fixed.
Cheers.

Last edited by phyberoptycs (2015-02-09 02:46:37)

Thralas

Member

Registered: 2007-06-26

Posts: 32

Re: [Solved] GRUB Install Question

Hello,
Is this partition (sda1) even necessary if I use MBR?

Yes. It's Windows' system partition.