Arch Linux

NeoTubNinja

Member

Registered: 2009-08-06

Posts: 8

Dual Booting on a SSD

Just got a new SSD and want to dual boot arch and windows 7. Looking at the Arch Wiki SSD page I know that I have to use the deprecated MBR method, which shouldn't be a problem.

That said, is there are preferred method for putting windows on? In the past I have always put windows on first, then used gparted to fix up the partitions, and the installed arch so that I didn't have to deal with the whole fixing of the grub thing because the MBR gets microsofted. I'm wondering if this would work for SSD's as well or is there some side effect to doing it this way?

One more thing. Can't seem to find where I thought I saw it, but can I get away with just arch and use windows as a virtual machine? Does TRIM work and is it any better/worse? Keep in mind I haven't had much luck with Virtual Box in the past.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Dual Booting on a SSD

Depends.... what do you want to do in windows?  If it's for games, I dunno how a vbox will work.  Do you have an old HDD you can put in the system?  If so, put windows on there and keep the ssd for arch

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NeoTubNinja

Member

Registered: 2009-08-06

Posts: 8

Re: Dual Booting on a SSD

I want to use it for a few games and Adobe Photoshop. I should really just learn Gimp, but I haven't. The newer versions have some sort of GPU acceleration that I doubt I can access from a VM.

I do have another drive which I had planned to store most of my data (movies, shows, music, programming, etc.) which I could put windows on. I did buy a 128 GB SSD however, because I expected to put 2 OS on it, and I'm positive windows could do with a little faster boot time.

If I did put it on another drive, would I be able to use GPT to boot windows? Or am I still constrained to the MBR?