[arch-general] Wanted: advice dual-booting Arch and Windows 7 on new laptop

[Martín Cigorraga]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:14 AM, Robbie Smith <zoqaeski at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> TL;DR: I've just bought a new HP Pavilion g6-2103ax, and I'm having
> difficulties trying to figure out how I can dual-boot it with Windows 7
> (which was preinstalled).
>
> Windows *still* defaults to using MBR partitions, and even though the
> system is UEFI, HP have used some trickery somewhere to make it boot from
> BIOS. To make matters worse, the disk table already has four partitions:
>
> SYSTEM: 199 MB NTFS
> Windows C drive: ~ 450 GB NTFS
> HP Recovery partition: 18.5 GB NTFS
> HP_TOOLS: 99 MB FAT32
>
> The SYSTEM partition seems to contain the Windows bootloader, or something
> along those lines. The HP Recovery partition contains the software
> necessary to do a factory reset, and HP_TOOLS contains some UEFI
> applications (some system diagnostic things). C drive is Windows.
>
> What I was thinking of doing was shrinking C drive, and deleting the
> recovery partition to make space for Arch. But on my first attempt, parted
> bricked the table, and whilst I was able to recover it, Windows refused to
> boot. I obtained recovery disks to restore it, but they are completely
> non-interactive so cannot be used to rescue Windows, only reset to factory
> initial state.
>
> Due to the arrangement of the partitions, I don't think creating an
> Extended partition will work (they need to be the last one in the table,
> don't they?), and while I've read GRUB2 can use /boot in LVM, I'm not sure
> whether this will work. Also, I've never used GRUB2 before, and its configs
> look formidable compared to Syslinux. Ideally I'd switch to GPT, but
> Windows needs to be booted in UEFI mode for this, but I have no idea how to
> enable this as there's neither a switch in the BIOS settings, nor settings
> in Windows.
>
> Can anyone advise me on how I could overcome these issues? Has anyone had
> any experience with new HP g6 models?
>



On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 6:14 AM, Robbie Smith <zoqaeski at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> TL;DR: I've just bought a new HP Pavilion g6-2103ax, and I'm having
> difficulties trying to figure out how I can dual-boot it with Windows 7
> (which was preinstalled).
>
> Windows *still* defaults to using MBR partitions, and even though the
> system is UEFI, HP have used some trickery somewhere to make it boot from
> BIOS. To make matters worse, the disk table already has four partitions:
>
> SYSTEM: 199 MB NTFS
> Windows C drive: ~ 450 GB NTFS
> HP Recovery partition: 18.5 GB NTFS
> HP_TOOLS: 99 MB FAT32
>
> The SYSTEM partition seems to contain the Windows bootloader, or something
> along those lines. The HP Recovery partition contains the software
> necessary to do a factory reset, and HP_TOOLS contains some UEFI
> applications (some system diagnostic things). C drive is Windows.
>
> What I was thinking of doing was shrinking C drive, and deleting the
> recovery partition to make space for Arch. But on my first attempt, parted
> bricked the table, and whilst I was able to recover it, Windows refused to
> boot. I obtained recovery disks to restore it, but they are completely
> non-interactive so cannot be used to rescue Windows, only reset to factory
> initial state.
>
> Due to the arrangement of the partitions, I don't think creating an
> Extended partition will work (they need to be the last one in the table,
> don't they?), and while I've read GRUB2 can use /boot in LVM, I'm not sure
> whether this will work. Also, I've never used GRUB2 before, and its configs
> look formidable compared to Syslinux. Ideally I'd switch to GPT, but
> Windows needs to be booted in UEFI mode for this, but I have no idea how to
> enable this as there's neither a switch in the BIOS settings, nor settings
> in Windows.
>
> Can anyone advise me on how I could overcome these issues? Has anyone had
> any experience with new HP g6 models?
>


Hi Robbie

I will try to give you some advice based on my own experience with my HP
laptop (Pavilion dv7-4287cl) I bought roughly one year and half ago.
Short answer: nuke Windows, GPT your disk -be aware that it's likely to be
a 4kb/sector hd so take that in mind when partitioning-, install Arch, what
else? Oh yeah: never again buy any HP related product.

But I want to keep Windoze! answer: the four partitions layout is a shitty
move from HP/Microsoft, they enforce you to use only Windows because as you
already discovered the "rescue DVD" (rescue, yeah, they're shameless)
restores exactly that layout: it wipes your disk and recreate the same
structure; worst: if you read the HP warranty they say that it will be void
if you modify in any way the original layout of your hard drive, so in the
case -we hope not of course- you need to send your computer to their tech
support staff be sure to restore your HD to factory defaults before send it
or you'll be out of luck - yeah, they sucks.

So if you can't resize the actual Windows C: partition to make space for
Arch then you're out of luck but if you can then remember to backup your
MBR and partition table just in case:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB2#MBR_aka_msdos_partitioning_specific_instructions,
I think your best bet here will be GRUB Legacy (Syslinux may do the job too
but since I never really used it besides some playing I don't know if it
will work or not, check the wiki).

Another thing you may try -if you *really* need a physical install of W7-
is downloading a W7 that matchs your installed W7 version and try to use
your license key on it - I'm pretty sure it will likely don't work since
the good people at Micro$oft makes sure the licenses you already paid from
one source don't work on any other side (good people!) but who knows...

One last thing: if you choose to go with the Arch Linux only install you
are legally backed to ask for a full money refund for what you paid for the
Windows license -at least in my country-, do check at the store where you
bought your machine for the refund.