On 10/29/2016 06:30 AM, Patrick Burroughs (Celti) wrote:
I suggest you double-check the partitioning and possible presence of an EFI system partition on that Windows drive from within your Arch install. If both msinfo and the partitioning confirm it's not UEFI, then I suggest you a) make sure the firmware is up-to-date, and b) comb through the firmware settings and make sure that it's fully in Legacy/BIOS mode and not Hybrid UEFI/BIOS mode; the latter is the cause of most such problems, in my experience.
~Celti
Celti, There isn't anything in /sys/firmware. Here is the current contents: $ l /sys/firmware/ total 0 drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 0 Nov 8 04:53 . dr-xr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Nov 7 14:00 .. drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 0 Nov 8 04:53 acpi drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Nov 8 04:53 dmi drwxr-xr-x 19 root root 0 Nov 8 04:53 memmap Latest and greatest firmware: $ pmq | grep firmware linux-firmware 20161005.9c71af9-1 That matches the bios config of having only the Legacy boot enabled and the UEFI mode completely disabled. This is downright baffling. I'm writing this from tbird in plasma/kde installed on the 1T drive that is working flawlessly -- the only issue is I have to boot from the .iso on the USB and then "Choose existing OS" to boot this install on the hard drive. Totally bewildered. I don't see how Syslinux on the USB works and grub is just being ignored on the hard drive. All windows has on it is the normal bootmgr BOOTNXT BOOTSECT.BAK BOOTBCD BOOTSTAT.DAT bootvhd.dll en-us bootmgr.exe.mui memtest.ext.mui I don't know if that tells you anything, but there is no efi folder referenced by https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/commercialize/manufacture/... and there is a bootmgr file which is used by Legacy MBR booting. So from all indications, the windows drive is using nothing but good old MBR booting. There were a couple of threads I found discussing problems seeing the larger SSD drives. I wonder if the size of the sata drive is causing the problem itself. (that really makes no sense as I've not encountered any reasonably recent bios that will not recognize a 1T drive -- but I'm grasping at straws here) Anybody have any other suggestions? Try syslinux for boot? Worst case, I just keep booting from the USB, but that seems kind of whacky in 2016... -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.