[arch-general] how to boot Windows and Arch...

[Magnus Therning]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org> wrote:
> Preston C. schrieb:
>>
>> Thank you Magnus, very much. Windows is on the first SATA port,
>> though. Any difference in the configuration of Grub since Windows is
>> on the first SATA port?
>
> That's difficult indeed. Grub will be installed in the MBR of the first disk
> and as far as I know will need its files to be on the same disk - in a
> FAT32, ext2/3/4, xfs, jfs, ... (not NTFS) partition.

I can't find any mention of such a limitation for grub.  Looking at
grub-install one can put grub on the boot sector of any device, and
specify a root-directory for its files.  No mention of the boot sector
and the root having to be on the same device.  Do not I haven't got a
system that I'm willing to play around with, so nothing's tested :-)

> Having Arch on the first BIOS disk including grub is probably easier, but
> you have to do some magic device-swapping in Windows' grub entry, which will
> otherwise refuse to start. I don't exactly remember the details.

IIRC it was quite a long time since Windows gained the ability to deal
with not being installed on C:, so I'm not sure that device swapping
is necessary.

Another option would be to keep Window's boot loader on the first
disk, install Grub on the boot sector of the second and have Windows
chain load Grub.  It's a bit ugly, and adds one layer on the boot
sequence, but I know it works.

As you can tell I'm not very familiar with the limitations of Grub,
but as long as OP makes a backup of the original boot sector (using
dd) and keeps a Live CD around for emergency restore of the boot
sector he should be all right with doing some experimentation :-)

/M

-- 
Magnus Therning                        (OpenPGP: 0xAB4DFBA4)
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