Arch Linux

Snuken

Member

Registered: 2011-06-14

Posts: 24

Need help with partiotioning. Want to dualboot.

Hi,
I've used arch a few years ago but now I'm a bit confused on how to partition and mount and configure so that I can dualboot with both windows and arch. I now have a UEFI motherboard which I've never installed a linux dist on.
I've read the beginners guide but still confused on how to do it properly.

What I have is two SSD's. One 256GB with my windows installation, and another 500GB one that I want to install arch on. What confused me most is the EFI system partition and how it relates to boot and how I will configure so that it can boot both windows and arch that are on different SSD's (don't I use GRUB anymore? The guide mentioned "Install systemd-boot to the EFI system partition").

What I want is basically;
My normal windows SSD untouched and be able to select it if I want to boot windows when I start my computer.
And on my other SSD I want to have arch on. I figure like 80GiB for root, the rest for /home (my friend told me I don't really need a swap partition). I figured I want to use ext4 as my fs.
I also have two 2TB normal HDD's that I want in /home/username/HDD1 and HDD2.
I assume I will have to change the boot order to start booting from my other SSD when I have installed arch.

What confused me in the guide was that they used "mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdxY" for the EFI but then said "mount /dev/sdxZ /mnt/boot". Where did sdxZ come from? It was sdxY before, because it said after "/boot is also recommended for mounting the EFI System Partition on a UEFI/GPT system."

So I'm confused on how to partition properly and mount and configure the bootloader so I can choose what OS to boot to.
Would really appreciate some help and maybe a step-by-step on how to accomplish this.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I read the following: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Du … imitations
And it seems that I use MBR mode and not UEFI because it says: "If the value is Legacy, Windows boots in BIOS-MBR mode", and it does say Legacy in Windows.
Does this change the installing procedure even though I have a UEFI motherboard?

Last edited by Snuken (2016-01-30 00:35:41)

Engelbrekt

Member

Registered: 2007-11-17

Posts: 38

Re: Need help with partiotioning. Want to dualboot.

Hi.
I have actually done a dual boot install on separate disks today so I can at least tell you how I did it.

1) Windows
Unplugged all disks but the Windows disk and booted with the Win install DVD.
Installation went without any problems but unfortunately the OS got installed in legacy mode (BIOS/MBR) and not in UEFI/GPT .
Rebooted and disabled CSM (Compatibility Support Module) in the UEFI setup and installed again. Checked mode with msinfo32 and this time it worked!

2) Linux
Unplugged the Windows disk and connected the Linux disk.
Booted with a USB stick and verified that I was in UEFI mode.
Created a gpt "label" and a 512 MiB FAT32 partition for ESP.
Created /, /var and /home as ext4 partitions.
Mounted all the partitions under /mnt, (I actually deviated a little bit and mounted ESP under /boot/efi and not as /boot but that is a minor detail)
Did the rest of the installation steps.
Installed grub and os-prober according to the wiki instructions for UEFI mode.
Created grub config using grub-mkconfig (I forgot this step the first time so I had to use the USB drive one more time )
Rebooted and verified that the system started.

3) Both
Connected the Windows disk as well and booted into linux.
Did

 # grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg 

=> Windows was automatically detected and added to the grub menu.
Rebooted and selected my Linux disk as primary boot source in the UEFI setup.

When I now start the computer it will boot from the Linux disks which displays options for both Windows and Linux.
If I select Windows grub will load Windows from the other disk.