Arch Linux

DoTheEvolution

Member

Registered: 2014-05-07

Posts: 24

[SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

normal uefi dual boot is that you install windows, mount its efi partition as /boot and install arch and all is fine
But could you maybe go pure "the systems never meet in any way" way?
No boot menu, no "dual boot" in traditional sense.

put in SSD A, install windows, disconnect it
put in SSD B, install Arch

Connect both SSDs, in UEFI choose default and then when needing the other one press bootkey during startup

I think enabling csm in uefi it would have no problem with this, its just looking for master boot record on pointed disk and go from there
but I actually tried this with full blown uefi/gpt
windows started, but when I pointed to boot from the arch drive, it would start efiflash environment or something
I did not have much time to explore deeper and try some stuff,  but soon my second SSD will come but meantime I am wondering...

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Anyone experimented with this?

Last edited by DoTheEvolution (2017-05-19 22:08:15)

olegabrielz

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2015-12-23

Posts: 255

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

This is just a wild guess. Could it be that you are using device names instead of UUIDs? I've done something similar some time back but can't remember having any problems with it.

Edit: typo

Last edited by olegabrielz (2017-05-16 14:54:33)

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Be aware of my Newbie Powers

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,540

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

There shouldn't be any problem with this arrangement. Don't bother physically switching the disks.

Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

That's exactly how I installed things here. I used two drives and only had one of them connected while installing either OS. I did the "disconnect" through disabling that particular SATA port in the UEFI/BIOS menus.

After enabling all SATA ports, I can now select between the drives in the boot selection of the UEFI/BIOS.

A thing you can do after you have everything installed is, you can copy that "/EFI/Microsoft" folder that's in the EFI partition on the Windows drive to the EFI partition on the Linux drive. The 'systemd-boot' boot-loader that comes with systemd will then automatically start displaying a Windows entry in its boot menu. This will correctly boot the Windows from the second drive, I think because there's UUIDs for the partitions saved in the config file of the Microsoft boot loader.

tom.ty89

Member

Registered: 2012-11-15

Posts: 897

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

it would start efiflash environment or something

Either you don't have a UEFI bootloader installed for the Linux disk/installation, or don't have it installed properly.

DoTheEvolution

Member

Registered: 2014-05-07

Posts: 24

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

I did use UUID during fstab generating
as I said, it was quick test with borrowed m.2 SSD and my new one will come tomorrow
glad to read that there should not be issues and that other users went this way without problems

will report how it went

sauron_di

Member

Registered: 2014-05-01

Posts: 18

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

I recently purchased a Dell XPS15 9560 and wonder whether I can do this to keep the windows partition intact because I might loose my warranty if I wipe it out.

DoTheEvolution

Member

Registered: 2014-05-07

Posts: 24

Re: [SOLVED] UEFI, dual boot, two SSDs, win / arch. Pure untangled?

OK, tested. Dunno what I did wrong the first time, but everything works as expected

settings in UEFI / Boot menu show both "Windows Boot Manager" and "Linux Boot Manger" and both work as expected.