Arch Linux

Lexion

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 510

dual booting windows 7

I just got a new desktop with windows 7 and I want to dual boot it with arch.  I started by making two partitions (in the windows installer):

100 MB - windows system partition
100 GB - windows main partition
400 GB - arch linux

I installed arch and then installed grub on the arch linux partition.  I booted the computer and it, without any grub, booted windows 7.  I can't boot arch.  What have I done wrong and/or how can I fix it?

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graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: dual booting windows 7

You installed grub to the arch partition.  It needs to be on your MBR and you need to manually create an entry for Windows.

Now:  Turn on PC --> Windows 7 loader
You need:  Turn on PC --> Grub --> Arch or Windows 7 loader

See the grub wiki page for more: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Grub

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Lexion

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 510

Re: dual booting windows 7

I installed grub to the MBR (/dev/sda) and I manually created an entry for windows:

title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

but on boot it says.

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

EDIT: added some details

Last edited by Lexion (2009-11-27 23:04:09)

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Arch will not hold your hand

llcawthorne

Member

From: Columbia, SC

Registered: 2009-10-16

Posts: 142

Re: dual booting windows 7

You have it right it would seem, except if the first partition on the disk is the Windows system partition (sda1), then you should use (hd0,0)

# (6) Windows
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive          
chainloader +1

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perbh

Member

From: Republic of Texas

Registered: 2005-03-04

Posts: 765

Re: dual booting windows 7

You have it right it would seem, except if the first partition on the disk is the Windows system partition (sda1), then you should use (hd0,0)

# (6) Windows
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive          
chainloader +1

Nope - sda1 is the windows _recovery_ partition.
You have just screwed up your windows boot!

The correct way is to make a small (30 megs is more than sufficient) boot partition (that would be sda3) and install grub on this. Then use fdisk to make it the 'active' partition.
Your original bootloader will look for the one and only 'active' partition amongst the primary partitions and boot from there. If grub is installed here, then you can happily boot up eithet windows or archlinux.
For some strange reason - this is what you have to do with vista and windows7 - xp was ok the way the OP did it.

llcawthorne

Member

From: Columbia, SC

Registered: 2009-10-16

Posts: 142

Re: dual booting windows 7

Nope - sda1 is the windows _recovery_ partition.
You have just screwed up your windows boot!

This is does not appear to always be the case. 

(hd0,0) works fine for me to boot into Windows 7.  I copied those lines from my menu.lst earlier, and I just rebooted and loaded Win7 to make sure it works properly.

I have the same setup with a 100 MB hda1 that Win7 stuck there, while Windows 7 actually resides on my 300GB hdb1 partition.  Pointing grub to the 100MB partition seems to work fine (for me at least).

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Lexion

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 510

Re: dual booting windows 7

I now have a partition table:

sda1 - 100 MB - Windows System
sda2 - 100 GB - Windows Main
sda3 - 30 MB - Linux Boot (BOOTABLE)
sda4 - ~400GB - Linux Main

If I set grub to boot from Windows System, it corrupts that partition.  If I set grub to boot from windows main, it gives an error:

BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

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urxvtc / wmii / zsh / configs / onebluecat.net
Arch will not hold your hand

Lexion

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 510

Re: dual booting windows 7

didn't want to bump this soon, but things go fast in this forum.

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Arch will not hold your hand

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: dual booting windows 7

Boot the windows cd and fixmbr, then reinstall grub to /dev/sda. (there is a howto on the wiki)
And put the bootable flag on the windows partion you want to boot.

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2009-11-29 14:21:08)

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Lexion

Member

Registered: 2008-03-23

Posts: 510

Re: dual booting windows 7

I reinstalled windows 7 with the previous partition table and this boot entry:

title Windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

It does not corrupt.  The makeactive param means that when you boot from this entry it becomes the active partition which resulted in this line:

#makeactive # HOLY SHIT

Which was the first thing I said after I found out about it.  Linux and windows 7 now work in harmony.

P.S.  I kinda like windows 7... scary.

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urxvtc / wmii / zsh / configs / onebluecat.net
Arch will not hold your hand