On 08/20/2012 09:31 AM, Conan Doyle wrote:
> After numerous searches on how to setup CentOS 6.3 and Win7 to dual boot
> I turn to the readers of this forum for help...
>
> I suppose my question is quite simple:
>
> What is the correct way to set up a dual boot system for CentOS 6.3, or
> SL 6.3, and Windows 7?
>
> I have tried several times, with several variations, but run into the
> same problem: After installing Win7, then CentOS, the machine boots
> straight into Win7 and no grub menu appears...
>
> I have a pretty new system that I built in Nov 2012: i5-2500K, Gigabyte
> GA-Z68XP-UD3 mobo, 8GB RAM, eVGA NVIDIA GTX 560 card, and two 1 TB SATA
> drives.
>
> My first attempt was to install Win7 on drive 0 then install CentOS on
> drive 1, with grub installed in the /boot partition which was on
> /dev/sdb1. Apparently there were some issues with this due to Win7,
> UEFI, etc. I didn't really understand all these problems so I tried again.
>
> My second attempt was to try to disable the EFI stuff in BIOS and
> install WinXP, then install Win7 over this to avoid the system restore
> partition, and EFI issues etc. then install CentOS over this, again
> installing grub to /boot, which was /dev/sdb1.
>
> I noticed the default location for grub was /dev/sda, which is the
> windows disk... Would this not hose up the windows install?

I believe your problem is right here.  Both of your previous 
descriptions installed the boot loader to a partition on the second 
disk.  Most BIOS will boot from the first MBR it finds.  This is 
typically the MBR of disk 0.

Your first attempt looked good, but you needed to install the boot 
loader for CentOS (SL, TUV, etc) to /dev/sda (notice no partition).  If 
the installer doesn't catch it, you will have to manually add in a chain 
loader for Win7 to the grub menu.  This is a quick text file editing. 
Examples can be found doing a web search along the lines of 'grub 
windows 7 boot entry'.

A typical dual boot should install Windows _first_, then any linux 
distributions.  This allows the later boot loaders to locate and add 
entries for the previous operating systems if possible.  The Windows 
loader can be a pain to get other operating systems (such as linux) to 
work, but it is possible.  You'd have to extract the linux boot loader 
from the disk into a file, put it on the windows partition, and manually 
add entries to the NTLDR configuration.  At least, that is how it was 
many years ago when I did it with NT4 and using lilo.

>
> I have set up Windows/CentOS dual booting before, but not on this
> machine, and not with CentOS 6.3. Any help would be appreciated more
> than you can imagine...
>
>
> I have been a CentOS user for a while, but I am intrigued by SL, and
> would definitely jump ship to SL if I can get it dual booting with Win7...
>
> Ed


-- 
Mr. Mark V. Stodola
Senior Control Systems Engineer

National Electrostatics Corp.
P.O. Box 620310
Middleton, WI 53562-0310 USA
Phone: (608) 831-7600
Fax: (608) 831-9591