Dual boot with any Linux and Windows 7/8 having UEFI

[zacharysonicfast]

Hi everyone.

I recently got a new laptop that came with with Win7 and UEFI.

I tried repeatedly to dual boot Win7 and Linux but each time I tried it, Win7 demanded a reformat and re install, disabling Linux.

A temporary work around was for me to remove the windows hard drive, use an external SSD hard drive with USB 3.0, install Linux that way.

I re installed the windows drive.

As long as the external drive is not connected when windows boots up I do not have a problem.

Now every time I want to use Linux I have to shut down the laptop, plug in the external drive, press the ESC key, select that drive, and boot that way. It is a little slow but it does work.

I would rather have the Linux drive onboard and use a windows drive externally for those times when I need it. (Yes, I need it to use my internet dongle since linux doesn't support mine yet)

Anyone figure out a way to circumvent uefi and allow proper dual booting?

Erasing and R/R windows is out of the question - I would lost too much data.

Physically switching hard drives is not my idea of fun.

I can dual boot with Puppy Linux on a always plugged in flash drive but still have to select that drive at boot up before windows sees it.

Is there a version of PCLos that can be used without setting the boot flag or installing GRUB?

I got the feeling that UEFI is looking for boot flags and swapfile partitions.

I did notice that if I use a Linux Swap File anywhere on the computer that windows can detect, windows forces a R/R as well.

[Just17]

I have dual booted Windows and Linux on UEFI motherboards without any problems ....  three so far I think.

There is no problem with the Linux OS in this regard.

I believe there is so much information missing from your story that it is impossible to even guess at what is happening.

For instance you say

I tried repeatedly to dual boot Win7 and Linux but each time I tried it, Win7 demanded a reformat and re install, disabling Linux.

How, when and in what manner did "Win7 demand" a reformat from you ......  and a reformat of what exactly?

Maybe if you can be more precise about what you did, what the error was and the exact conditions under which it happened, we could make some sense of it.

Anyone figure out a way to circumvent uefi and allow proper dual booting?

On hardware I have used no such circumvention was needed.

[DeBaas]

Possible workaround:
For win7, install grub (last part of the PCLinuxOS install) on the PCLinuxOS install partition.
example sda6 not sda.
Install EasyBCD (Google) in Windows and add PCLinuxOS in the menu.

[ShowMeRon]

 This is from DistroWatch http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20121126 scroll down the page to - " Secure Boot has arrived". Worth a try.

[YouCanToo]

I have dual booted Windows and Linux on UEFI motherboards without any problems ....  three so far I think.

There is no problem with the Linux OS in this regard.

I believe there is so much information missing from your story that it is impossible to even guess at what is happening.

For instance you say

I tried repeatedly to dual boot Win7 and Linux but each time I tried it, Win7 demanded a reformat and re install, disabling Linux.

How, when and in what manner did "Win7 demand" a reformat from you ......  and a reformat of what exactly?

Maybe if you can be more precise about what you did, what the error was and the exact conditions under which it happened, we could make some sense of it.

Anyone figure out a way to circumvent uefi and allow proper dual booting?

On hardware I have used no such circumvention was needed.

Just17 - Can you tell me what motherboard(s) you have with UEFI?

Thanks.

[Just17]

I have dual booted Windows and Linux on UEFI motherboards without any problems ....  three so far I think.

There is no problem with the Linux OS in this regard.

I believe there is so much information missing from your story that it is impossible to even guess at what is happening.

For instance you say

I tried repeatedly to dual boot Win7 and Linux but each time I tried it, Win7 demanded a reformat and re install, disabling Linux.

How, when and in what manner did "Win7 demand" a reformat from you ......  and a reformat of what exactly?

Maybe if you can be more precise about what you did, what the error was and the exact conditions under which it happened, we could make some sense of it.

Anyone figure out a way to circumvent uefi and allow proper dual booting?

On hardware I have used no such circumvention was needed.

Just17 - Can you tell me what motherboard(s) you have with UEFI?

Thanks.

The only one I still have here is an MSI H61-MA-E35  I ~think~ ......  not sure what is in which PC now, would have to check if needed.

[zacharysonicfast]

Ok, I put in the dvd and restarted the computer. I installed linux to a second hard drive.

Linux worked fine.

When starting windows 7, windows refused to start and popped up the part that makes me reformat and reinstall windows without any other choices.

Windows worked but after that Linux didn't and couldn't boot.

I am using a brand new asus laptop with i5 cpu. I have no idea what motherboard or other hardware descriptions it has.

The only way I get to use Linux is to remove the windows drive, plug in an external drive, install linux to that drive, shut down the computer and reinstall the windows drive, unplug the external drive and boot windows.

If I want to use linux I have to have the computer off, plug in the external drive, boot the computer, select the external drive to boot from. If i make a mistake and forget to unplug the drive while windows is booting, windows will force a reformat and reinstall every time.

The only version of linux I can leave attached is puppy linux because it seems it doesn't set a boot flag or use a non-windows partition.

I even tried making a permanent linux swapfile partition so I could use a dvd or flash drive with faster performance. Windows refused to start until I reformatted and reinstalled windows or removed the 'unauthorized' partition. It seems that windows wants only windows on the computer.

I hate UEFI...

I won't touch the windows drive at all, for warranty reasons.

[Old-Polack]

Ok, I put in the dvd and restarted the computer. I installed linux to a second hard drive.

Linux worked fine.

When starting windows 7, windows refused to start and popped up the part that makes me reformat and reinstall windows without any other choices.

Windows worked but after that Linux didn't and couldn't boot.

I am using a brand new asus laptop with i5 cpu. I have no idea what motherboard or other hardware descriptions it has.

The only way I get to use Linux is to remove the windows drive, plug in an external drive, install linux to that drive, shut down the computer and reinstall the windows drive, unplug the external drive and boot windows.

If I want to use linux I have to have the computer off, plug in the external drive, boot the computer, select the external drive to boot from. If i make a mistake and forget to unplug the drive while windows is booting, windows will force a reformat and reinstall every time.

The only version of linux I can leave attached is puppy linux because it seems it doesn't set a boot flag or use a non-windows partition.

I even tried making a permanent linux swapfile partition so I could use a dvd or flash drive with faster performance. Windows refused to start until I reformatted and reinstalled windows or removed the 'unauthorized' partition. It seems that windows wants only windows on the computer.

I hate UEFI...

I won't touch the windows drive at all, for warranty reasons.

You are telling us a story about what you think is happening with nothing supporting it. How about a step by step with real information like exact error messages, and what your grub entries for both Windows and Linux are. Many others have dual boot systems with Windows and Linux and don't experience what you claim, and it's hard to verify anything if you report only after you've destroyed all the evidence.

Install Linux, then boot into it, and post here when that is done. We will have questions that can only be answered if you can run the commands we give, and those commands must be given from a running installed Linux system.

[JohnW_57]

More info with dual booting Windows 7/Linux at: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Linux
UEFI have nothing to do with Windows 7.
Guess it's only with Windows 8.

JohnW

[sling-shot]

What is the edition of Windows 7 you are using? Is it Business or something?

Did you buy the machine yourself or did your employer provide it?

The behaviour you describe may be caused by some special secure policy implemented in YOUR installation of Windows.

I have a UEFI laptop with Windows 7 Home Basic 64bit on it. My primary bootloader is GRUB but within Windows, I have also setup EasyBCD as a fallback option.
It has never asked me to reformat, reinstall.
--------------------

As Old-Polack says, you either need to give the EXACT message that Windows shows when it asks you to reformat and the exact steps you took or give us 4 - 5 screenshots of the whole process.

[sammy2fish]

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

[Old-Polack]

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

Why wouldn't it? I have 2 TB, 1 TB, and 750 GB, drives on this computer, the 750 GB and 1 TB being in external eSATA cases, the 2 TB being internal, with a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard with UEFI BIOS. I can, and do, boot from all three drives, a USB memory stick or USB hard drive, as well as a number of other devices I don't actually have. The MB doesn't give a crap what OS is on any given drive, or how many.

The question is what video card/GPU does your MB have, if it's on board. That will give you more potential headaches than just having a UEFI BIOS. Gigabyte calls this a Hybrid Dual BIOS which can be set to regular BIOS, UEFI, or automatic, which uses regular BIOS for drives 2TB or smaller and UEFI for 3 TB drives and larger. Until I'm told otherwise I would assume this is their standard BIOS these days. I have it on two different recent Gigabyte Motherboards.

[YouCanToo]

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

I was looking at reviews for the mother board and they are saying "The H61 chipset lacked support for USB 3.0 ports, SATA 6 Gb/s and PCIE 3.0."  can you verify if it has any of these

[sammy2fish]

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

Why wouldn't it? I have 2 TB, 1 TB, and 750 GB, drives on this computer, the 750 GB and 1 TB being in external eSATA cases, the 2 TB being internal, with a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard with UEFI BIOS. I can, and do, boot from all three drives, a USB memory stick or USB hard drive, as well as a number of other devices I don't actually have. The MB doesn't give a crap what OS is on any given drive, or how many.

The question is what video card/GPU does your MB have, if it's on board. That will give you more potential headaches than just having a UEFI BIOS. Gigabyte calls this a Hybrid Dual BIOS which can be set to regular BIOS, UEFI, or automatic, which uses regular BIOS for drives 2TB or smaller and UEFI for 3 TB drives and larger. Until I'm told otherwise I would assume this is their standard BIOS these days. I have it on two different recent Gigabyte Motherboards.

OK.

I have a after-market ATI 4850 videocard.  So far, so good.

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

I was looking at reviews for the mother board and they are saying "The H61 chipset lacked support for USB 3.0 ports, SATA 6 Gb/s and PCIE 3.0."  can you verify if it has any of these

It has 4 usb2 plugs, and 2 usb3 plugs on the back.

I have a 128-gig ssd drive, 1-terabyte optical drive, 2-terabyte inside the tower.  A 500-gig 2+1/2 external in a usb3 box... plugged into an external usb3 port.

In my observations, usb3 rocks about the same speed as sata2 to sata2.  Which is good for usb.

[YouCanToo]

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

Why wouldn't it? I have 2 TB, 1 TB, and 750 GB, drives on this computer, the 750 GB and 1 TB being in external eSATA cases, the 2 TB being internal, with a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 motherboard with UEFI BIOS. I can, and do, boot from all three drives, a USB memory stick or USB hard drive, as well as a number of other devices I don't actually have. The MB doesn't give a crap what OS is on any given drive, or how many.

The question is what video card/GPU does your MB have, if it's on board. That will give you more potential headaches than just having a UEFI BIOS. Gigabyte calls this a Hybrid Dual BIOS which can be set to regular BIOS, UEFI, or automatic, which uses regular BIOS for drives 2TB or smaller and UEFI for 3 TB drives and larger. Until I'm told otherwise I would assume this is their standard BIOS these days. I have it on two different recent Gigabyte Motherboards.

OK.

I have a after-market ATI 4850 videocard.  So far, so good.

Frack anyways.....

On my tower I have a 128gig-ssd drive (C-drive), a 1-terabyte, & 2-terabyte drive.

I dual-boot... so I want to keep the 128gig just for win7.

I want to put PLCOS-kde on the 1-terabyte drive.  But my motherboard is a "gigabyte" ga-b75m-d3h.  It has the UEFI built-in.

Is this going to work?

I was looking at reviews for the mother board and they are saying "The H61 chipset lacked support for USB 3.0 ports, SATA 6 Gb/s and PCIE 3.0."  can you verify if it has any of these

It has 4 usb2 plugs, and 2 usb3 plugs on the back.

I have a 128-gig ssd drive, 1-terabyte optical drive, 2-terabyte inside the tower.  A 500-gig 2+1/2 external in a usb3 box... plugged into an external usb3 port.

In my observations, usb3 rocks about the same speed as sata2 to sata2.  Which is good for usb.

Perhaps whom ever did that review of the motherboard was uninformed about no support for USB 3.0 or maybe they had a earlier version of the board.  Thanks for checking that out for me