Dual-boot not working with Win7 & Arch (installation problem?)
Hello,
I decided to reinstall Windows today and wanted to try Linux after a long time. I have two seperate hard disks, one for Windows and the other for Linux. I partitioned the Windows disk into three parts (one primary and two logical) and installed Windows first. After that I booted into Arch installation and partitioned the Linux hard disk with cfdisk. I created four (primary) partitions: /root (ext4, 30 GB), /var (ext4, 10 GB), /swap ( swap, 2 GB) and /home (ext4, ~500 GB). Then I selected GRUB as my boot loader and had to select where I want to install it... I might have made a mistake there, according to some article on Arch Wiki I installed it on the Linux hard disk (on /root I think, at least that's what I selected in cfdisk) and completed the installation. Then I tried to reboot as prompted, but got a long list of errors. The error messages were something about missing logical parts and "SQUASHFS Error". I couldn't reboot the system so I had to manually hit reset button. I thought I had managed to break my MBR or something, but seemingly Windows works just fine. I just can't boot into Linux at all, and I don't see the Linux hard disk on Windows. Easeus Partition Manager shows both hard disks and there seems to be "MBR" part on both... Is it possible to recover my Arch? Or should I install it again, and if so, what did I do wrong the first time? Btw, Windows is on the "first" hard disk so Linux partitions were labelled as "sdb" 1-4, and I installed GRUB on the first one, i.e., /root. |
FWIW I don't like your (Linux) partition scheme - better if you had also created an extended there as well; much more flexible. As it is, you can't create any more partitions - say should you choose to try another distro (as well as Arch). Might add some weight to the "re-install completely" option.
Generally I prefer to allow grub to be the boot-loader - it will then allow you to chose. For that it will need to be in the MBR of /dev/sda. Any reason you chose not to do that ?. The Win7 BCD can load Arch as you have installed it - have a search for EasyBCD. It's free and quite handy if you insist on using Win7 to boot. Edit: sorry, you can also "fix" things so grub will boot both without a complete re-install. Tell us what you want to achieve, you'll get a solution. |
Hmm, well I suppose I could just re-install Arch for the sake of flexibility. I guess I can just wipe the whole disk and assign /var, /swap and /home partitions as logical in cfdisk? There was another thing I was wondering when I created the partitions with cfdisk: if I remember right, I had to label one partition as "Bootable" in order to write the partition table. That doesn't interfere with the fact that MBR should have been put in the Window's hard disk?
I chose to put Grub on sdb (Linux hard disk) because of this article: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...Arch_Dual_Boot. It says: "3/Be sure to install GRUB on the MBR on the Arch drive (I didn't test with syslinux but it should work too)." I'd appreciate exactness regarding Grub and how to make Windows boot from it. :) The article I linked says how grub's menu file should be modified, but seemingly I failed anyway. |
Ahhh - that's different again. Try changing the boot drive in your BIOS. If you did it correctly Arch should boot. Then post the output of these commands (try them as root).
Code:
cat /boot/grub/menu.lst |
I switched booting to the Linux disk and got Grub. Then I selected Arch and got the following error:
Code:
File system type unknown, partition type 0x7 |
Quote:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/ |
The problem is that changing the BIOS boot drive (usually) changes the drive designation in Linux. So what was /dev/sda and /dev/sdb during install is now reversed. So it all goes to hell unless you use something like UUID or LABEL.
Lemme go find an Arch CD to see how easy it is to fix this from a chroot off the install disk. Edit: must have been a while since I installed an Arch. That's a liveCD - use that to go get that bootinfoscript as requested. Then we can give you a simple fix to put grub in the MBR. Set your BIOS boot drive back to the way it was before getting the info. |
So I misinterpreted liveCD - was expecting a GUI.
Same old Arch. Going to be too hard to do from that. Go get a "normal" (GUI) liveCD to download the bootinfo script. For a better description of what is involved, use this link. |
Alright, downloaded openSUSE LiveCD and bootinfo script gave the following results:
Code:
Boot Info Script 0.60 from 17 May 2011 |
That looks sane, with one exception. Your Windows entry is commented out in the grub menu.lst. If that isn't rectified you won't see, let alone be able to boot, a Windows entry in your (grub) boot menu. I presume you did that deliberately, so it needs to be undone.
If you don't have a Win7 recovery disk, now would be an excellent time to create one. After that, from the Arch liveCD, these commands will re-write the MBR on the Windows disk. The Windows loader code will be over-written - you have been warned. Code:
grub |
EDIT: Meh, didn't realize I could just boot with the Arch installation CD and fix grub there!
Alright, managed to boot into Arch now! Can I just uncomment the Windows part on /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to get Windows on Grub's list? I mean, I don't have to change any values there? |
Grub appears to be o.k. - can't say what happened to the Arch install itself.
What you're looking for is the Arch menu.lst, not the liveCD (as in OpenSuSE) one. You'll need to find and mount that partition (from "files" will be fine; just click on the "30 Gig Filesystem"). Then from that mount-point locate the menu.lst - will probably be something like /media/4b4ea850-baf1-440b-8cca-78ce65d575ae/boot/grub/menu.lst unless you used a label on the filesystem. Next you need to edit that file as root. Use <Alt>-F2 to open a command prompt, and use the full path you got above - including the complete (and correct) string of numbers and digits that is the UUID Code:
gnomesu gedit /media/4b4ea850-baf1-440b-8cca-78ce65d575ae/boot/grub/menu.lst All of the above presumes you have a gnome liveCD. |
Yeah, was initially trying to fix the wrong menu.lst file. Now that I managed to boot into Arch I could just edit it there. Uncommented the Windows part and successfully booted into Windows this time. Everything seems to be working now, thanks a lot syg00!!! This case is solved, now I can get to the business. :)
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