[SOLVED] Dual Booting Windows 7

ss32 · 10-30-2014, 08:02 PM

After searching around and not finding a definitive answer I figured I would ask here. I have Mint 17 on SATA0 (sda) and Windows 7 on SATA2 (sdc) with Grub-2 installed on both. When I try to boot to Windows I get an error about not finding the C/H/S values. I can work around it by booting to the Windows drive and then selecting Windows from the Grub menu, but I'd rather it work when booting from my main drive and only having to select Windows from Grub. Is there a way to fix this?

Possibly relevant information:

Code:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdc

Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x46c413e2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc2          206848   488278015   244035584    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdc3       488278016   976773119   244247552    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

ember1205 · 10-30-2014, 09:21 PM

Windows typically needs to be on the boot drive and your Linux installation can be on the other.

jefro · 10-30-2014, 09:25 PM

Did it ever work?

I might be tempted to go to bios. Sometimes there is a discover method that re-scans the drives. Not sure why a system capable of sata would fail like that as it was generally ide drives.

ember1205 · 10-30-2014, 09:28 PM

I fully suspect the issue is that Windows will only boot when the Windows drive is the actual boot device. It has never liked being "swapped in" after the boot actually occurred.

What's the difference between booting the main drive and choosing Windows from the menu and booting the Windows drive and choosing Windows from the menu?

syg00 · 10-30-2014, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ss32

I have Mint 17 on SATA0 (sda) and Windows 7 on SATA2 (sdc) with Grub-2 installed on both. When I try to boot to Windows I get an error about not finding the C/H/S values. I can work around it by booting to the Windows drive and then selecting Windows from the Grub menu, but I'd rather it work when booting from my main drive and only having to select Windows from Grub. Is there a way to fix this?

Huh ?
You have grub on both MBRs and you want to boot Win7 natively ?.

Not enough info here for me to make any sense out of it. Go here, do as it says, and post the RESULTS.txt so we can see the full boot environment.

ss32 · 10-31-2014, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ember1205

I fully suspect the issue is that Windows will only boot when the Windows drive is the actual boot device. It has never liked being "swapped in" after the boot actually occurred.

That's what it sounds like.

Quote:

What's the difference between booting the main drive and choosing Windows from the menu and booting the Windows drive and choosing Windows from the menu?

I have never considered telling it to boot from the Windows disk. Any time I've wanted to boot Windows I bring up the boot menu and select that drive. I'll try booting linux from the Windows drive and if it works then I have my solution.

ember1205 · 10-31-2014, 12:01 PM

Definitely let us know...

ss32 · 10-31-2014, 01:50 PM

I reinstalled Grub 2 on sdc (Windows drive) and now boot from it with no problems. Thanks for the easy fix.

ember1205 · 10-31-2014, 02:08 PM

Scroll up to the top... There's a link there.

Glad you got it working.