Arch Linux

shak

Member

Registered: 2009-03-16

Posts: 405

dual boot with archlinux and windows issue

Hi again!

This is what i did from the beginning :

windows was already installed and then i installed archlinux after shrinking the windows partition . I made a partition for boot , one for swap and one for root(i wanted to do for home too , but only 4 primary partitions are allowed) . I made the boot partition bootable , and so was windows bootable and i got the message that there are two bootable partitions so it couldn't write the partition table . So removed the bootable tag from windows and left only the boot partition bootable . I then installed the grubloader to boot partition and then i edited that grubmenu and uncomment the part where windows was like it says in wiki. After restarting i could see the menu to choose between archlinux and windows , i chose windows , i succesfully logged in and after restarting again i couldn't see the grubloader and i automatically logged in windows .

Does anyone know what might be the issue ??

Thanks !

Last edited by shak (2009-03-27 20:20:30)

Ranguvar

Member

Registered: 2008-08-12

Posts: 2,549

Re: dual boot with archlinux and windows issue

Linux/GRUB/LILO do not need the boot flag -- that's for Windoze only.

Are you sure you're booting from the right hard disk (do you only have one?)? Your BIOS should have a boot menu, or you can just make the drive with Linux on it (again, if you have more than one) the only one in the BIOS's boot list. Otherwise, I think GRUB was overwritten by NTLDR again somehow... you'd need to install GRUB again.

shak

Member

Registered: 2009-03-16

Posts: 405

Re: dual boot with archlinux and windows issue

yes i only have one hard rive , i managed to find a solution not that elegant though , i 've installed acronis os selector from windows and i can choose between windows and linux with acronis on boot . If i choose linux i get to the grub menu and i can choose between arch linux and windows . So it seems that the grub menu is still there but it doesn't appear when i boot for some reason .

Last edited by shak (2009-03-27 20:34:40)

Vladislav IV

Member

Registered: 2008-06-23

Posts: 30

Re: dual boot with archlinux and windows issue

Hi. You shouldn't install Grub on a partition ; it should be installed on the MBR instead.

When you booted Windows, the Windows partition became bootable, and thus your computer boot on it by default. Then you use a bootloader to boot the other partition, which also have a boot loader...

Remove both bootloaders, install Grub on the MBR (eg not /dev/sdaX, but /dev/sda), and everything should go just fine.