Arch Linux

py

Member

Registered: 2025-01-09

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

Hello!
I'm grateful for you to solve my problem.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I use VMware Workstation Pro 17.6.2 build-24409262. Below is my settings

-> two virtual hard disk, uefi boot(no secure boot)
---> disk1(nvme0n1) for win10
---> disk2(nvme0n2) for Arch

-> no fastboot, no bitlocker

-> First install grub, then add rEFInd.

-> win10 esp section mounted on Arch /mnt
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Issue

Using refind-install, not detecting windows10

However with same win10(using VMware snapshot) and Ubuntu installed instead of Arch, rEFInd successfully detect windows bootloader(Ubuntu use grub as default bootloader)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Partition

[nvme0n1p1] windows esp partition

[nvme0n2p1] Arch        esp partition

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for your reply.

Last edited by py (2025-01-27 09:28:04)

Ivan95

Member

From: Russia, Rostov-on-Don

Registered: 2024-11-24

Posts: 12

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

Unfortunaly, You cannot combine Windows And Arch Linux in one in VMWare Workstation Virtual Machine
You must make them sperate from other, meaning Windows away from Arch Linux on their own machine they go
Atleast you tried
And Also you cannot combine Boot Loaders unless Windows doesn't support systemd-boot
And Also Also, if you still want to try, then install systemd-boot instead of GRUB if your virtual machine supports it
There are no other choices i am afarid
Another Also, You also might need to try the same on VirtualBox next time if it doesn't work

---

Programing in Linux Shell
The Reasons I Use Arch (.sh script) (Yandex Disk Backup) GitHub Repo (open code) and yes I took down all but expect Yandex Disk as a permanent backup

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,223

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

Unfortunaly, You cannot combine Windows And Arch Linux in one in VMWare Workstation Virtual Machine
You must make them sperate from other, meaning Windows away from Arch Linux on their own machine they go
Atleast you tried
And Also you cannot combine Boot Loaders unless Windows doesn't support systemd-boot
And Also Also, if you still want to try, then install systemd-boot instead of GRUB if your virtual machine supports it
There are no other choices i am afarid
Another Also, You also might need to try the same on VirtualBox next time if it doesn't work

sorry not sorry - but most of your comments are wrong
- no matter the virtualization same as on real hardware several OSs can be combined within a VM - as a VM is, as its name suggest, just a virtualization which looks like real hardware to the guest (at least for this type of software not aware of how to scan for a hypervisor)
- the only "can not" about boot loaders is that windows unfortunately needs its bootmgfw to correctly load ntfs driver, read the bcd, find winload and use it to boot windows - otherwise you're free to combine multiple boot loaders(/managers) - in fact with an UKI there's no need for a boot loader(/manager) at all but it can be loaded by a UEFI directly - or even can be chained by the windows boot loader
- grub, systemd, refind, syslinux - no matter as pretty much all modern boot loaders work fine within most VMs
- no need for VBox - in fact VBox comes along with its own subsystem so it may conflict with xen - also: on linux another option is KVM with libvirt and qemu

@OP
I only played around with refind in a kvm and for me it's not quite useful - as its install script on a clean system copies some parameters of the install boot instead of correctly discovering the freshly installed system and hence requires manual correction same as systemd. Sure it can be done but if you look for something that works "automatic" (as in: it discovers foreign OSs on its own) I recommend using grub + os-prober - at least it works best for me as other boot loaders, namely systemd and refind, require manual config and seem to be incapable of auto discover like grub can do ... but that's just my personal opinion based on some play around in a kvm.

py

Member

Registered: 2025-01-09

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

Unfortunaly, You cannot combine Windows And Arch Linux in one in VMWare Workstation Virtual Machine......

Thanks for reply!

In fact I do prefer grub cause it detect encrypt disk. However in [bold]VMware Workstation[/bold], it's impossible to detect mutiple hard disk using Vmware bios (which only provide one disk info to grub)

Here comes solution:

Tip: By default refind-install installs only the driver for the file system on which kernel resides. Additional file systems need to be installed manually by copying them from /usr/share/refind/drivers_x64/ to esp/EFI/refind/drivers_x64/, or you can install all drivers with the --alldrivers option. This is useful for bootable USB flash drives.

1. Choose drivers

   See details in Install script info

2. Intall rEFInd

   refind-install

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,223

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

However in VMware Workstation, it's impossible to detect mutiple hard disk using Vmware bios (which only provide one disk info to grub)

although I don't have experience with xen I doubt that

py

Member

Registered: 2025-01-09

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

Unfortunately, You cannot combine Windows And Arch Linux in one in VMWare Workstation Virtual Machine.......

Thanks for reply!

I'm interested in UKI mentioned above (never heard about it before), next installtion I'd like to try this method.

Grub is surely my first option but it not work with VMware Workstation. Vmware bios only provides one disk info to grub.

I find solution for this problem and post it here in case someone is interested:

1. Use another drive
   As metioned above, VMware bios not provide all disk info into grub.

   To check this, run ls command in grub shell.

   So using grub driver maybe can solve it but I never tried this

   See Using nativedisk in grub

2. Disable fastboot in bios

   In this method bios provide all disk info into grub(VMware not provide fastboot option)

3. Manually load disk info

   Every time go into grub, just choose uefi firmware settings option, which (I guess) force bios to load all disk info to find all boot options. Then choose your grub to boot. (If you want, check loaded disk in grub shell using 'ls')

   I know this method is stupid cause it's not elegant and, if you go into uefi firmware settings, simply choose windows bootloader instead of grub just works fine.

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,223

Re: [SOLVED] rEFInd not auto-detecting windows10 in vmware workstation

as said: I don't have experience with VMware (btw: had to look it up - vmware is esxi - I mixed it up with xen which is citrix) myself - so I'm not aware of how it presents the drives to the guest - although yes I recognized the multiple namespaces within the same drive (which is nvme0)
but to me it seems quite odd that vmware seem to present multi drives as the same device but only split with different namespaces - which likely throws off standard code paths which expects multiple devices instead of just multiple namespaces under the same drive

and although I'd like to play around with that stuff myself I don't know if I can get my hands on that stuff without paying for a license
my experience is limited to virtualbox on windows host and kvm/libvirt/qemu on linux host

I onced had contact with an admin using an esxi cluster to provide rapid vm deployment as a re-seller provider - but that was 10 years ago

as for vmware I only used horizon as client at work - tunneled through a citrix connection - and although all wired through 10gbit optical backbone the latency was already quite annoying, mostly the lagg in voice calls with customers