Hi,
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk:
- 1M BIOS boot partition - 500M Linux boot partition - 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19) - 200G unused space
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
Regards,
Andre
Allegedly, on or about 22 November 2013, Andre Costa sent:
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk:
- 1M BIOS boot partition
- 500M Linux boot partition
- 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19)
- 200G unused space
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
Windows installations have always messed with bootloaders to set things up for itself, and nothing else. So I wouldn't expect any newer versions of Windows to be any different. Be prepared to redo your bootloader, for dual-booting, post Windows installation.
The only time I've seen Windows installations acknowledge prior installs and give you a boot choice has been when installing some versions of Windows with a another version of Windows. Microsoft only cares about Microsoft.
Makes sense (unfortunately :-/ ). I will be prepared, thks ;-)
Another (offtopic) question: anyone knows if Windows 8 can be installed so far on the disk? (XP for example can't handle large disks) I would really hate to have to repartition because of Windows... I will only use it eventually for gaming.
Regards,
Andre
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 9:19 AM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Allegedly, on or about 22 November 2013, Andre Costa sent:
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk:
- 1M BIOS boot partition
- 500M Linux boot partition
- 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19)
- 200G unused space
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
Windows installations have always messed with bootloaders to set things up for itself, and nothing else. So I wouldn't expect any newer versions of Windows to be any different. Be prepared to redo your bootloader, for dual-booting, post Windows installation.
The only time I've seen Windows installations acknowledge prior installs and give you a boot choice has been when installing some versions of Windows with a another version of Windows. Microsoft only cares about Microsoft.
-- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp Linux 3.9.10-100.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Sun Jul 14 01:31:27 UTC 2013 x86_64
All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted, there is no point trying to privately email me, I will only read messages posted to the public lists.
George Orwell's '1984' was supposed to be a warning against tyranny, not a set of instructions for supposedly democratic governments.
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On Nov 22, 2013, at 4:53 AM, Andre Costa blueser@gmail.com wrote:
Another (offtopic) question: anyone knows if Windows 8 can be installed so far on the disk? (XP for example can't handle large disks) I would really hate to have to repartition because of Windows... I will only use it eventually for gaming.
You have one primary partition remaining in the MBR. I haven't installed Windows 8, so I can't tell you if it's any different than other Windows, but I think it will install into a single partition so long as it's a primary partition. Its preference is to have 2 or 3 separate partitions, but the installer is going to see it only has the one option to install to, so presumably that's what it'll do. At least this is how it's working on OS X when users prepare the system with Bootcamp Assistant, the resulting installation is a single partition Windows 8 install.
Chris Murphy
On Nov 22, 2013, at 4:19 AM, Tim ignored_mailbox@yahoo.com.au wrote:
Windows installations have always messed with bootloaders to set things up for itself, and nothing else.
To be fair, Linux installations eat their own as well.
The only time I've seen Windows installations acknowledge prior installs and give you a boot choice has been when installing some versions of Windows with a another version of Windows. Microsoft only cares about Microsoft.
Which is quite a bit friendlier than most Linux installations where the prior GRUB is stepped on, access to the former GRUB menu is lost, and you depend on whether or not GRUB2 + OS-PROBER can figure out how to collect your other linux distros together and make them bootable, of course without any of their distribution specific kernel parameters which have also been lost.
So really, linux distributions are actually rather hostile to each other when it comes to multibooting, than Windows or OS X. They're actually in some sense friendlier to co-existing with Windows, than they are each other.
Chris Murphy
On Nov 22, 2013, at 3:25 AM, Andre Costa blueser@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk: 1M BIOS boot partition 500M Linux boot partition 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19) 200G unused space I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
Yes and no. The first 440 bytes of the first sector, LBA 0, cannot be shared. Only one bootloader can exist there at a time, either Windows or GRUB. This 440 bytes of GRUB code was called stage1, it's now called boot.img, and it baked in the LBA it's supposed to jump to next. For the Windows stage1 equivalent, it jumped conditionally to the start LBA for the partition in the MBR with an active bit set.
Because you're using BIOS Boot, it's possible grub-install put core.img (formerly stage2) right at the start of that partition, in which case by merely changing the boot flag (the active bit), you could choose which OS is loaded. But it's not guaranteed that grub-install will put core.img right at the start of that partition.
So I suggest you install Windows, let it blow away GRUB's boot.img on LBA0, reboot from Fedora install media - ideally either netinstl or DVD because you can choose the rescue option which will mount everything correctly so that all you have to do is:
chroot /mnt/sysimage grub2-install /dev/sdX grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg exit reboot
Where X is probably an a if this is the only drive on the computer. If you only have live desktop media handy then you get to setup the mounts yourself and since you're using LVM it makes it more complicated since you need to check if the LVs are active, and find their names, and mount them all in the right sequence:
mount /dev/mapper/fedora-root /mnt/sysimage mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sysimage/boot mount -B /dev /mnt/sysimage/dev mount -B /proc /mnt/sysimage/proc mount -B /sys /mnt/sysimage/sys
And then the same as above starting with chroot. Reinstalling grub will toast the Windows 440 bytes in LBA 0. And rerunning grub2-mkconfig *should* cause it to call OS-PROBER, find Windows, and create a GRUB entry for it automatically.
Chris Murphy
On 11/22/2013 12:00 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
Because you're using BIOS Boot, it's possible grub-install put core.img (formerly stage2) right at the start of that partition, in which case by merely changing the boot flag (the active bit), you could choose which OS is loaded. But it's not guaranteed that grub-install will put core.img right at the start of that partition.
Actually, the boot flag isn't important because only Microsoft pays any attention to it.
On Nov 22, 2013, at 1:45 PM, Joe Zeff joe@zeff.us wrote:
On 11/22/2013 12:00 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
Because you're using BIOS Boot, it's possible grub-install put core.img (formerly stage2) right at the start of that partition, in which case by merely changing the boot flag (the active bit), you could choose which OS is loaded. But it's not guaranteed that grub-install will put core.img right at the start of that partition.
Actually, the boot flag isn't important because only Microsoft pays any attention to it.
That's untrue. syslinux/extlinux both use jump code in LBA 0 that likewise jumps to the start LBA for the partition with the active bit set. There's also an old freebsd boot manager that let's the user choose which partition to boot from, in effect a faux (impermanent) setting of the active bit.
I could be mistaken but I believe LILO works the same way. So it may be that GRUB is the only thing that doesn't pay attention to it.
Chris Murphy
On 11/22/2013 01:20 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
That's untrue. syslinux/extlinux both use jump code in LBA 0 that likewise jumps to the start LBA for the partition with the active bit set. There's also an old freebsd boot manager that let's the user choose which partition to boot from, in effect a faux (impermanent) setting of the active bit.
My hard disk still starts with an old partition with Win98SE on it, partly because I've never bothered to go through it and take off (or archive) anything I might want some day. I haven't tried to boot it in several years, but the active flag is still set. Grub and Grub2 have always ignored it.
On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:25 AM, Andre Costa blueser@gmail.com wrote:
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
When I wanted to add Linux to my Windows 8 system and maintain a dual-boot, the only distribution that successfully did that out of the box was Fedora (then F18). This could have more than a little to do with the fact that I have an HP laptop and UEFI isn't terribly mature just yet.
Going the other way around -- starting with Linux and adding Windows 8? I'm not terribly confident because I know that Windows likes to be "first" on the hard drive. I could be wrong, but my gut says install Win8 first and then roll Fedora onto the box.
-- Steven Rosenberg http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog http://blogs.dailynews.com/click stevenhrosenberg@gmail.com steven@stevenrosenberg.net
On Nov 22, 2013, at 3:25 AM, Andre Costa blueser@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk: 1M BIOS boot partition 500M Linux boot partition 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19) 200G unused space
Wait a minute, I need to back this train up a whole lot.
You have a BIOS Boot partition. That means this disk uses GPT partitioning, not MBR partitioning. Windows on BIOS hardware will only boot from a disk that's MBR partitioned. Windows on UEFI hardware will only boot from a disk that's GPT partitioned.
So you actually have some difficulty with this layout if your computer is BIOS based, it will refuse to install to this GPT partitioned disk. And if it's UEFI, there's some difficulty because then it means you've somehow enabled the UEFI CSM-BIOS when installing Fedora. And combining UEFI booting Windows with BIOS booting Fedora poses some problems, I'd have to go look at the various bugs in bugzilla to refresh my memory about it.
In any case, we need to know if your computer's firmware is BIOS or UEFI.
Chris Murphy
Andre Costa wrote:
Hi,
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk:
- 1M BIOS boot partition
- 500M Linux boot partition
- 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19)
- 200G unused space
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
How comfortable are you with virtual machines, assuming that your CPU supports it? You could set Windows in a VM on that partition, and the overhead is minimal enough that it shouldn't hurt unless you really beat on Windows. Just a thought,
On Nov 22, 2013, at 5:13 PM, Bill Davidsen davidsen@tmr.com wrote:
Andre Costa wrote:
Hi,
I have the following partitions on a 1TB disk:
- 1M BIOS boot partition
- 500M Linux boot partition
- 733G Linux LVM partition (Fedora 19)
- 200G unused space
I would like to install Windows 8 on this last partition. Anyone knows if this will mess up with my current boot manager? Can Windows 8 coexist with GRUB?
How comfortable are you with virtual machines, assuming that your CPU supports it? You could set Windows in a VM on that partition, and the overhead is minimal enough that it shouldn't hurt unless you really beat on Windows. Just a thought,
He wants it for gaming. I wouldn't use a VM for that.
Chris Murphy
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Andre Costa -
Bill Davidsen -
Chris Murphy -
Joe Zeff -
Steven Rosenberg -
Tim