Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-06 11:45:20

Hi everyone.

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone for helping me out in my first thread regarding choice of partitions and filesystems.

I went on to install Arch today on my second HDD (160GB). My first HDD has Windows 7 installed on it. (The BIOS shows that the HDD with Win 7 installed is HDD1.)

Arch showed the HDDs as sda and sdb. I was installing on sdb and created my partitions accordingly.

sdb1 --> root (15GB)
sdb2 --> swap (1GB)
sdb3 --> var (10GB)
sdb4 --> home (remaining space)

I had to flag sdb1 as Bootable.

Then I was asked about mountpoints and something about selecting by dev or uuid. I didn't quite understand but selected dev. Then formatted with ext4. Did not add any parameters.

Before proceeding they gave a warning about no /boot partition but I continued anyway.

It was an FTP install and went pretty smoothly. I configured everything exactly as I had read in the guides online and Wiki. GRUB said it configured successfully (I did not make any chnges to it). I had put GRUB on sdb and not on any partition.

As I rebooted, my system did not show the GRUB but went straight on to Windows 7. I went into BIOS and changed my first drive to the 160GB Seagate where I had installed Arch and rebooted. This time GRUB came up without any option to boot Windows 7. When I selected Arch it gave an error and did not boot.

So I'm back on Windows 7 and need help. I'm a noob and did not much understand the solution that I saw on another thread. Since I intend to have the 2 OSs on separate drives and dual boot, what should I do?

Will be very grateful for any help.

Last edited by Ritwik7 (2010-06-06 12:01:31)

Ashren · 2010-06-06 12:30:30

In the grub menu press "e" to edit Arch's grub entry.

Change (hd0,0) to (hd1,1) press "Esc" and then press "b" to boot. After booting into arch you need to edit your menu.lst to make the change permanent.

For Windows to show in the grub menu you have to uncomment it in your /boot/grub/menu.lst.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gru … _boot_menu

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-06 12:54:13

As far as I understand (hd0,0) would stand for my first partition on sda.

(hd1,1) would be sdb2. But my / partition is sdb1 (it's flagged as bootable in cfdisk). So should I change to (hd1,0).

Ashren · 2010-06-06 13:27:05

Yep, you're right. Try changing it to (hd1,0).

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-06 14:40:02

I will try that in a while. I actually reformatted the HDD thinking I might have made a mistake with my install.

Just one thing. Could someone please tell me how exactly should my menu.lst look if my partition is like:

sda --> Windows 7

sdb1 --> /
sdb2 --> swap
sdb3 --> /var
sdb4 --> /home

I'm assuming that the bootloader should be installed in sdb. Is that right?

Also, I read a lttle about dual booting on the Arch Wiki. It mentions a command called "map". How exactly does that work?

pyther · 2010-06-06 16:24:51

From my experience the drive that loads the boot loader becomes hd0. So you'll probably want your arch install to read (hd0,0). And (hd1,0) for windows. The map command is used to make windows think it's installed on the first drive.

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-06 18:16:10

I have been reading a little bit in the forums. Some places (even a very recent thread) mentions that certain lines need to be de-commented in the menu.lst file. Which lines do I need to de-comment? I'll get down to a second round of installing and I don't want to make a mess again.

Also, is it necessary that my HDD in which I'm going to install Arch has to be the first HDD according to my motherboard BIOS?

pyther wrote:

The map command is used to make windows think it's installed on the first drive.

Do I need to do this for my installation?

Last edited by Ritwik7 (2010-06-06 18:21:55)

Ashren · 2010-06-06 21:01:24

Ritwik7 wrote:

I have been reading a little bit in the forums. Some places (even a very recent thread) mentions that certain lines need to be de-commented in the menu.lst file. Which lines do I need to de-comment? I'll get down to a second round of installing and I don't want to make a mess again.
Also, is it necessary that my HDD in which I'm going to install Arch has to be the first HDD according to my motherboard BIOS?
pyther wrote:
The map command is used to make windows think it's installed on the first drive.
Do I need to do this for my installation?

If you want to boot in to windows uncomment the Windows part of menu.lst:

From:

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

To:

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

You can install Arch on any hard drive you want - Linux does not care Windows does. Grub must reside on the mbr (master boot record) on the first hard drive according to bios - it must be the first thing your system sees.

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-07 12:43:33

Ashren wrote:

Grub must reside on the mbr (master boot record) on the first hard drive according to bios - it must be the first thing your system sees.

So I made a mistake when I installed GRUB in sdb? I should install it on my Windows 7 HDD?

What about the "default" entry in menu.lst? Any changes that I should make there?

I have an exam tomorrow, so I'll install Arch once I get back.

Thanks a lot for your patience.

Ashren · 2010-06-07 13:03:08

So I made a mistake when I installed GRUB in sdb? I should install it on my Windows 7 HDD?

No, just make sure that sdb is the first hard drive in the boot sequence.

I have a very similar setup as you at home - the only difference I see is a separate boot partition - I'll post my menu.lst when I get home

Ritwik7 · 2010-06-07 13:07:21

Thank you very much.

It would be a great help having a look at your menu.lst.

Last edited by Ritwik7 (2010-06-07 13:07:45)

Ashren · 2010-06-07 18:48:53

Here you go:

# Config file for GRUB - The GNU GRand Unified Bootloader
# /boot/grub/menu.lst

# DEVICE NAME CONVERSIONS 
#
#  Linux           Grub
# -------------------------
#  /dev/fd0        (fd0)
#  /dev/sda        (hd0)
#  /dev/sdb2       (hd1,1)
#  /dev/sda3       (hd0,2)
#

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#  for more details and different resolutions see
#  http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Framebuffer_Resolution 

# general configuration:
timeout   5
default   0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

# boot sections follow
# each is implicitly numbered from 0 in the order of appearance below
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*

# (0) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1


# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/mapper/vghparch-lvroot ro quiet
initrd /kernel26.img

# (2) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/mapper/vghparch-lvroot ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

I installed grub on the second hdd and configured the bios so this drive comes first in the boot sequence and as pyther pointed out above the drive where grub is loaded from becomes hd0.

Last edited by Ashren (2010-06-07 18:51:29)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-06 11:45:20

Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#2 2010-06-06 12:30:30

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#3 2010-06-06 12:54:13

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#4 2010-06-06 13:27:05

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#5 2010-06-06 14:40:02

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#6 2010-06-06 16:24:51

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#7 2010-06-06 18:16:10

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#8 2010-06-06 21:01:24

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#9 2010-06-07 12:43:33

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#10 2010-06-07 13:03:08

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#11 2010-06-07 13:07:21

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

#12 2010-06-07 18:48:53

Re: Arch And Windows 7 Dual Boot On Separate HDD

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