Arch Linux

Eit

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2010-01-22

Posts: 57

Dual boot, different Storage mode

It's quite a strange story I know

first of all , long time ago before installing arch I had a HW raid0 but I had to erase it because I didn't want to have problems installing arch.
Erasing it I didn't switch off the storage configuration that was on RAID (even if ofc I haven't any raid)
I've decided to install win7 on my other hd (unused) to have a support in case of need, but I had some trouble selecting the hd to install it because it wasn't the booting hd so in the bios I've changed it and I noticed that I had the RAID set as storage configuration and I've switched it to IDE enhanced (default setting) .
I've managed to install $even, back to arch the boot failed because of IDE enhanced setting and the only working option (beside seven) is the arch fallback version...
Changing the voice in the bios to AHCI makes arch work but not seven, that fails to start allowing to fix startup....that of course is useless

little summary

2xSata2 HD 500GB,

Storage configuration (bios setting)              

IDE (enhanced) : seven working, arch fallback working
AHCI: arch working, seven not working

Thanks in advance

Caveman85de

Member

Registered: 2010-05-25

Posts: 26

Re: Dual boot, different Storage mode

What are the parameters for fallback, from grub?
Which Kernel are you using? (normal-boot and fallback)?

Eit

Member

From: Italy

Registered: 2010-01-22

Posts: 57

Re: Dual boot, different Storage mode

I'm using 2.6.33-ARCH kernel

my menu.lst voices are the following

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/c9ddb6fa-ad33-458b-8cdb-7097406a06e3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/c9ddb6fa-ad33-458b-8cdb-7097406a06e3 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Windows
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

snaip

Member

Registered: 2009-08-20

Posts: 21

Re: Dual boot, different Storage mode

Now I'm not sure what hooks your main image is missing but..

Since your fallback works, I'd boot to the fallback, open /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, and check out the hooks. The file has some documentation on what hooks you can use, probably want to remove "raid" and add "ide" or "sata" (or pata?). I really have no clue about "ide enhanced", but I suppose something should work of those. And well, then regenerate the image (mkinitcpio -p kernel26), reboot, and see if it boots at all anymore

Windows installs hardware specific kernels on system installation, and if changing AHCI to IDE or other way around things just wont boot without a reinstall or falling back to the original mode.

Note:
If you want to be on the safe side, backup your fallback image under some easily remembered name, like "fail.img". If the new kernel images fail to boot, you can still use grub to boot the fail.img (hit "e" to edit selection in grub menu, modify and hit "b" to boot the modified selection)