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Using MeeGo with the Windows 7 Boot Loader

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Starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft includes a more advanced boot loader with their OS. Getting this boot loader to work with MeeGo can be a little tricky, because the extlinux boot loader is really intended for embedded set-ups (not flexible, multi-os desktops).

Contents

Set up the Partitions

Before you do anything, you must have your partitioning planned out in advance. Once you start, you must not change it. You will need:

  1. A 200 MB ext3 partition (will be MeeGo's /boot)
  2. A 2GB swap partition
  3. A btrfs partition at least 10GB (will be MeeGo's /)

Do not modify the "boot flag."

If you need to resize an NTFS partition, or if you need to preserve a partition (or two) at the /end/ of the drive... it is strongly recommended that you do this with a Linux LiveCD (esp. an Ubuntu or Fedora install CD). MeeGo can not resize partitions, and the graphical partition manager is unstable in this situation.

Many OS's do not yet have support for the btrfs file system, so just select ext3.

Write down the partitions that you created (e.g. sda5 is /boot, sda6 is /, sda7 is swap).

Save the Windows MBR

After you have partitioned, you must save the windows MBR (with partition table). This can be done from any Linux Live CD (even MeeGo): 

dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/windows_mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

Save this on an external drive.

Install MeeGo

Install MeeGo. At the disk partitioning step, select "Custom Layout." Configure the devices as shown above. Be sure that you instruct MeeGo to (re)-format each of these partitions. Make sure that MeeGo's / is using a btrfs file system.

Grab the MeeGo MBR and Restore the Windows MBR

After MeeGo is installed, do /not/ reboot. Shut down and boot into a live OS so that you can grab MeeGo's MBR. 

dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/meego_mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

Also save this on an external drive.

Now, restore the windows MBR: 

dd if=/path/to/windows_mbr.bin of=/dev/sda

When you reboot, it will take you to windows. Windows may offer to boot in "safe mode," but choose to start windows normally.

Add MeeGo to the Windows Boot Loader

Boot into windows. Open up a Command Prompt as the administrator. Copy meego_mbr.bin to C:\. Fire off BCDEdit commands until you have this setup: 

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {f4019350-9104-11df-9aaf-fcea12ecf137}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \meego_mbr.bin
description             Transmission 5 (MeeGo)

Note that the GUID ("{f4019...137}") will be different. See this article for a step-by-step on entering the BCDEdit commands. Note that step 2 in that document should probably end with "device partition=C:" instead of "device boot".

On your next reboot, Windows will let you select which OS to run... and both should load fine.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.meego.com/Using_MeeGo_with_the_Windows_7_Boot_Loader"
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