Arch Linux

CrunchyChewie

Member

Registered: 2010-04-08

Posts: 9

Possible to install Windows 7 AFTER Arch for dual-boot?

Here is my storage situation at the moment:

I have a 250GB SATA HDD where Arch is installed.

sda1 is ~/ - 15GB
sda2 is /var - 7.5GB
sda3 is swap - 4.5GB
sda4 is /home - 220GB or so

In addition, I also have

2x 250GB SATA in FakeRaid 0, Formatted NTFS, no data

1x 750GB SATA, Formatted NTFS, all media, docs etc... from my Windows install.

I installed Arch with ALL the other drives unplugged. Right now all it knows is the 250GB it is installed on.

Is it possible to:

Resize sda to include 30-40GB for a Windows 7 boot

Have the FakeRaid array be available to install all Windows games/apps to, and have the media on the larger drive for storage, possibly to be accessed by both OS'es?

Let me know if this is feasible or if you think it would be better to install Windows 7 first. I appreciate any response in advance. Thanks very much!

timm

Member

From: Wisconsin

Registered: 2004-02-25

Posts: 417

Re: Possible to install Windows 7 AFTER Arch for dual-boot?

I think it is recommended to install Windows first, something about the bootloader finding it and Windows being particular.  Check the wiki.

Slurp53

Member

Registered: 2010-03-31

Posts: 20

Re: Possible to install Windows 7 AFTER Arch for dual-boot?

You can install windoze after linux, but be prepared to reinstall grub cuz windoze is probably going to rewrite your MBR.  I believe it is possible to boot linux from the windoze boot loader or you can reinstall grub and have grub boot windoze.  You might have to do a little hidden partition magic within your grub configuration to make windoze boot.  Windoze likes to be on the first partition of the first drive.  :)

demian

Member

From: Frankfurt, Germany

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 709

Re: Possible to install Windows 7 AFTER Arch for dual-boot?

You can't have more than four primary partitions in your ms dos partition table. So although it's generally possible to resize a partition you won't be able to resize sda4 since there's no space for another primary partition. You'll have to reinstall. It'd make sense to install Windows 7 first since it has to be installed on a primary partition anyway and will overwrite any boot loader previously installed. If you choose to install Arch Linux first you'll have to reinstall grub after the Windows install using the Arch Live CD. You do that by mounting your root partition to /mnt and doing: grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda.

Your final partition table could look like this:
sda1 small windows boot partition
sda2 windows
sda3 extended
sda5 root
sda6 home
sda7 swap

Don't know about the FakeRaid thing.

Regards,
demian

Last edited by demian (2010-04-14 11:05:05)

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no place like /home
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