How do I setup dual-boot with windows 7

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1

Hi,
Thank you for your post. It was clear and easy to read.
I’m running a machine with Windows 7 (due to an unsolved driver issue with windows10).
My Windows installation is in bios and not in UEFI.
I wonder, is it the same process except for the EFI partition?

2

Maybe - I have never actually tested a Windows 7 dual boot installation.

Before you commit to create dual boot - please check the partition layout and filesystems used. This will give you an idea of what to expect and how to install.

Using the fdisk command will provide useful info

sudo fdisk -l

Especially look out for the partition table type MS-DOS/MBR or GPT.

It is possible your Windows 7 is installed as BIOS/GPT and this presents a unique challenge.

The guide has been amended to include Windows 7 on BIOS/MBR.

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3

Thank you for your reply.
To summarize the output below, I used a 150 GB partition for windows (labeled as sdb1) along with the 100 MB Windows boot partition taken as sda1.
It looks like the Disklabel type is set to DOS. Is that what we’re looking for and thus I can apply your guide with a bold heart :smile: ? If not, is there a way around this?

Disk /dev/sda: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: ST95005620AS    
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x103fe548

Device     Boot Start    End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *     2048 206847  204800  100M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdb: 465.76 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: ST95005620AS    
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x3048aec6

Device     Boot Start       End   Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1        2048 318670847 318668800  152G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT


Disk /dev/sdc: 3.73 GiB, 4003463168 bytes, 7819264 sectors
Disk model: DT 100 G2       
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x094b1860

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *     2048 7819263 7817216  3.7G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Disk /dev/loop0: 610.11 MiB, 639750144 bytes, 1249512 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
4

When the type is dos - then skip the marked sections in the guide.

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5

I’ll do that and inform you in case any errors occurred.

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6

Everything worked just fine.
I was only asked to make an 8 MB unformatted partition with a bios_grub flag, and the installation went smoothly well.
I also managed to successfully switch between Manjaro and Windows7 with rebooting.

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7

Ah - this is probably because the grub files has a size which do not fit onto the MBR - I have only seen the requirement for GPT. I am glad it worked out for you :+1:

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