On 07/26/2015 07:35 AM, [email protected] wrote: > On Sat, Jul 25 2015, Mick wrote: > >> On Saturday 25 Jul 2015 16:32:19 Daniel Frey wrote: >> >>> Is Windows writing a hybrid partition table? Maybe use something like >>> parted to check. >>> >>> Dan >> >> MSwindows these days installs a separate boot partition. The MSWindows boot >> manager can be chainloaded from there, but then it needs to be able to read >> the (GPT) partition table of the main OS, which in this case seems to be >> having trouble with. However, I am thinking that the URL I posted may refer >> to the bootloader (as in the MBR boot code) having trouble booting from a >> GPT >> table, rather than the MSWindows boot manager itself .... hmmm ... this >> needs >> some testing. >> >> Allan, have you tried first creating the partitions and FAT32/NTFS >> filesystems, BEFORE you attempted to install MSWindows? > > Thank you and daniel for your help. > > The system came with windows 7 on the whole disk 500GB. To shrink it to > 50 takes work as there are "unmovable" files in the middle (the "" are > there since you must actually moved them). Anyway I didn't try but > simply removed the big partition (I left the "dell" partition and the > windows recovery partition). I then installed linux (an error) leaving > a partition for windows.
Now I can't go and look back on the thread as I've deleted some messages... is this a new laptop with an UEFI BIOS? If that's the case you must use GPT with UEFI while booting Windows, and make sure Secure Boot is off in the BIOS settings if you want to use linux. I am not sure if Windows will boot if it was installed with Secure Boot on. > > Linux installed cleanly (after applying canek's two-step procedure for > profile setting). > > With my laptop I got a windows 8.1 recovery/installation flash drive. > I installed 8.1 (trivial) and then the trouble began. 8.1 is a *very* > different interface. I couldn't even find logout. Also the version > sent is buggy. I don't remember how I eventually exited. After that > the system wouldn't boot from the hard drive even after I re-executed > grub2-install and fdisk (both from the arch linux flash drive). A couple tips: The menu in Windows 8.1 is truly buggered. Easiest way to shut down is use Ctrl+Alt+Del, there'll be a power button at either the top right or lower right of the screen. If you use the Windows Key+X it shows an *actual* menu with useful shortcuts. Dan
