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#1 2017-08-12 06:04:05

shortstack
Member
Registered: 2017-08-12
Posts: 3

Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

First of thank you for your archness! I am loving it on my laptop now my desktop needs some help...

Trying to install Arch dual boot on Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgraded hard drive.
Arch installation media is booted via EFI as per dmesg | grep "EFI v"
Disabled fast boot, secure boot.

Partition Table as reported by cfdisk:
/dev/sda1 -- 100 mb -- HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 -- 833 gb -- HPFS/NTFS/exFAT -- flagged as boot -- which is weird since fdisk and parted report the 100mb partition as "boot"
/dev/sda3 -- 450 mb -- Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda4 -- 780 gb -- Linux

as reported by "parted":
...
partion table msdos
...
1  894 gb primary ntfs
2  106 mb primary ntfs boot
3  472 mb priamry ntfs diag
4  838 gb priamry ext4



Installed arch on /dev/sda4.

GRUB install: with mount points /dev/sda4 /mnt then /dev/sda1 /boot
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub
error: boot doesn't look like an EFI partition.

I have horked my boot loader - grub reports arch cannot load kernel on boot fall-back fails.

I do not have a windows 10 dvd but I had a windows 7 PE usb stick which boots and I ran the repairs from there but they failed on this windows 10 installation (not suprising).

I can get a windows 10 disk from a friend through snail mail if need be but I was wondering if I could:
1. resize my sda2 partition to give room so I can increase my sda1 to something > 512mb (it's only 100mb)
2. format it to fat32
3. reinstall grub in EFI mode to sda1 and then hope it finds my windows 10 os

Thank you this is my second arch install - my first was a dual boot on a windows laptop whichs is working beautifully after a small bit of struggle. I have never booted back into windows and it's been months!

Last edited by shortstack (2017-08-12 06:04:43)

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#2 2017-08-12 13:19:08

Blasphemist
Member
From: Colorado
Registered: 2013-01-17
Posts: 160

Re: Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

You're willing to wipe the ESP (sda1) so it sounds like maybe you could do what is really needed. You need to change the partition table to GPT, not MBR as it is now. Is taking the chance that you'll need to recreate everything possible for you?

A person can have a master boot record partition table and UEFI but I don't recommend it. That will always complicate things considerably. If you can back up all data that you need to keep then I'd recreate all by deleting all partitions and then convert the system to GPT. I'd create an ESP of 500MB (It doesn't need to be that big but you have lots of space) and then whatever partitions you want for arch and windows. Then reinstall arch and windows and it doesn't really matter in which order. With GPT and an ESP the grub (or other) and windows boot loaders don't overwrite each other when installed. Which of those you see at boot is determined by the UEFI boot order and can be changed easily using efibootmgr.


Simple and Open

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#3 2017-08-12 13:27:35

Head_on_a_Stick
Member
From: London
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 7,680
Website

Re: Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

shortstack wrote:

as reported by "parted":
...
partion table msdos
...
1  894 gb primary ntfs
2  106 mb primary ntfs boot
3  472 mb priamry ntfs diag
4  838 gb priamry ext4

Windows is installed in "Legacy" (non-UEFI) mode and so you should install a non-UEFI Arch system.

The `grub-install` command is different (and you shouldn't even have an ESP with which to mount to /boot so don't worry about that), details in the usual place:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Installation

Blasphemist wrote:

You're willing to wipe the ESP (sda1)

I don't think /dev/sda1 is an ESP (and GRUB agrees with me), the OP should probably post the output of `parted --list` to remove (most) doubt.

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#4 2017-08-12 15:33:21

shortstack
Member
Registered: 2017-08-12
Posts: 3

Re: Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful responses.
First off:
parted --list
returns
...
Partition Table: msdos
...
(and files system on the 100mb partition as ntfs.)

So it's a legacy parition table - non-UEFI.

Blasphemist, thanks - I will probably will wipe everything and reinstall using gpt when I get a win10 disk - I don't have a spare disk to back it up - but I would like to get things up to date and on UEFI since my mobo supports it and all - it's just that I have one program that I paid somewhat serious $$ for on that win os partition but I'd really like to kick it to the curb.

In the meantime, Head_on_a_Stick, thanks for clearing up my confusion, I will follow the non-UEFI install as outlined on the grub install wiki page, and thanks again for the well articulated, succinct and informed repsonses.

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#5 2017-08-12 16:56:19

Head_on_a_Stick
Member
From: London
Registered: 2014-02-20
Posts: 7,680
Website

Re: Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

shortstack wrote:

I would like to get things up to date and on UEFI [...] I will follow the non-UEFI install as outlined on the grub install wiki page

If you re-install Windows in UEFI mode then you should also install Arch in UEFI mode.

If Windows detects a GPT disk it will install in UEFI mode and create an EFI system partition (listed as type "ef00" in the output of `gdisk -l` or as "boot,esp" in the output of `parted -l`) that you can share with Arch and mount to /boot

shortstack wrote:

parted --list
returns
...
Partition Table: msdos
...
(and files system on the 100mb partition as ntfs.)

Please don't crop or abstract command output, always post the _full_ output: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855

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#6 2017-08-14 00:07:42

shortstack
Member
Registered: 2017-08-12
Posts: 3

Re: Need installation strategy on a Win 10 dual booted machine

Thank you, I have got my Arch os up and running (after a little more documentation reading and nomodeset and nouveau.nomodeset=0 to my grub kernel parameters for my nvidia card) put kde on and I'm taking it for a spin (I tried XFCE, Gnome and Unity - so many options and opportunities). My Win 10 is needing a Win 10 disk to do a repair (I know I'll have to go in and re-grub and grub-mkconfig it afterward). It was handy to be able to do the edit function in grub (pressing e on grub menu) to try things out as I had the blank screen after install that need the modeset stuff).

As for command output I was trying to put my command output on a usb stick and transfer it and had problems with that - turned out my stick was flaky but I spent a whole lot of time and frustration on that one - I should have taken a deep breath and consulted the wiki so I didn't know about the paste bin solution for command output - very cool and definitely in my handy bag of tricks going forward thanks again!

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