Arch Linux

tomfitzyuk

Member

Registered: 2005-12-30

Posts: 89

How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

Hey,

As we all know Windows gets slower after time and mine needs to be reinstalled.

However, during installation it will install its boot loader in my MBR. I need a method to boot into my Arch installation as so I can re-install GRUB to my MBR.

Boot from CD - Doesn't work for some reason, I'm guessing it's because I have a SATA HDD.

Boot into Arch installation from Arch CD and then attempt to chroot and install from there - After chrooting /dev only has console, zero and null in it. /etc/start_udev doesn't seem to do anything. Also, someone in the IRC channel suggested: mount --bind /dev /mnt/arch/dev (before chrooting) but mount complained about /dev not being a block device.

How I usually do it is by installing a new Arch onto another partition, and creating a GRUB file to boot into my old Arch Linux installation, but this method is far too inefficient (1. Time, 2. Needs a spare partition).

Does anybody have any suggestions as to what I should do?

Thanks
Tom

Jefg60

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2006-01-07

Posts: 100

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

I just boot the arch cd, run setup, mount partitions (but dont format obviously) then you need to go to edit config files, just open and close menu.lst, then it will let you install grub. then quit and reboot did this a few days ago.

Dusty

Schwag Merchant

From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Registered: 2004-01-18

Posts: 5,986

Website

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

In the past, I just cheated and copied my sda1 file from /dev to /mnt/arch/dev before chrooting.... worked for me. the mount --bind method should work though, that's a curious error.  Maybe its a restricted version of mount on the CD.

Dusty

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Sander

Member

Registered: 2006-02-26

Posts: 138

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

You could also create a grub floppy (theres a grub.img floppy image somewhere that you can dd to /dev/fd0 or you could use rawrite under windows), fire up grub, and then tell it:

configfile (hdX,Y)/location/of/your/menu.lst

(Note that the GRUB shell supports autocompletion for most filesystems, this may make it easier to find menu.lst. In fact, I believe there's also a 'find'-like command, but I've never used it.)

This should make your traditional GRUB menu show up. You can then boot any OS that's listed there and do a grub-install to 'repair' your MBR.

Instead of loading the menu.lst, you could also enter the commands to boot Arch manually.

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tomfitzyuk

Member

Registered: 2005-12-30

Posts: 89

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

Thanks for all the advice people.

I managed to create a GRUB floppy with the help of:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/TIP_Bootable_Floppy_with_GRUB

And by using:

configfile (hd0,0)/grub/menu.lst

I'm able to boot as I would normally, though I could always boot without configfile if ever my config file was wrong or inexistant.

Sander

Member

Registered: 2006-02-26

Posts: 138

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

Glad to see it helped I'm also around in #grub on freenode quite often (as 'benanne'), if anybody ever needs help urgently gimme a shout.

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You like cheese? You like peas? You'll love cheezy peas!

Alethos

Member

Registered: 2006-01-05

Posts: 84

Re: How to boot into Arch after Windows installation [SOLVED]

I second Jefg60's motion. Works like a champ.