Infrastructure Software

Hello,

I am hoping to discuss this with someone who has experience with this configuration. My goal is to get Oracle Linux dual booting on my windows 8 machine.

I have installed OL but I am having trouble getting it to dual boot win8/OL using the windows boot menu. Whereas windows 8 boots as expected, the Oracle Linux option gives me the error:

"+Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause...contact you system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance+

+File:+ \NST\nst_linux.mbr

+Status: 0xc000007b+

+Info: The selected application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.+"

Here are some details of the scenario:
- Documentation followed: Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-6-Installation_Guide-en-US.pdf
- Hardware: Dell Precision M4700 64 bit UEFI
- OEM installed/Default OS: Windows 8 Pro 64 bit
- Installation source: OracleLinux-R6-U3-Server-x86_64-dvd.iso (written to DVD)

These are the broad steps I followed:

In windows 8
I:
- downloaded the Linux ISO software. The checksum on the download matched
- wrote the ISO to a bootable installation disk
- created a new 344gb partition for Linux using the DOS DISKPART command - partition 7

Linux Install
- I booted using the Linux installation DVD and started the installation
- When Installing Linux partition 7 became a 500mb system partition and partition 8 became the 343 gb Linux partition
- I manually created the boot partition as ext3 (because the pdf I was following said "+If your 64-bit x86 system uses UEFI instead of BIOS, you will need to manually create a /boot partition. This partition must have an ext3 file system. If you choose to partition automatically, your system will not boot.+"
- I installed the boot loader on sda7. I selected “First sector of boot partition - /dev/sda7”. I assume this installs separate GRUB boot loader on the Linux partition (7) – which will then be 'chain loaded' from the windows boot menu. Put another way, it will boot with the windows boot manager, which will give me an option to chain load the Grub boot loader, which will then run Linux...
- I chose the desktop installation
- The installation reported that it completed successfully

I successfully booted back into windows:
- I used easybcd to edit the microsoft bcd and successfully created a boot menu for Oracle Linux. I used the legacy grub because the Linux documentation says "+Note that the version of GRUB in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is an old and stable version now known as "GRUB Legacy" since upstream development moved to GRUB 2.3 Red Hat remains committed to maintaining the version of GRUB that we ship with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, just as we do with all packages that we ship.+".
- After installing Linux and updating the BCD, the BCD now looks like this:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
integrityservices Enable
default {current}
resumeobject {2b56acdd-8bbe-11e2-9ba6-b8ca3ad88679}
displayorder {current}
{524cc0d3-8bce-11e2-935f-b8ca3ad88679}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 8
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {524cc0d1-8bce-11e2-935f-b8ca3ad88679}
integrityservices Enable
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {2b56acdd-8bbe-11e2-9ba6-b8ca3ad88679}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {524cc0d3-8bce-11e2-935f-b8ca3ad88679}
device partition=C:
path \NST\nst_linux.mbr
description OracleLinux

I'm not sure the BCD entry is correct. I assume that this entry should be pointing to the nst_linux.mbr on the Linux boot partition. However I have verified that this file exists in windows 8:
C:\NST\nst_linux.mbr

I haven't been able to exactly confirm how the boot process should work i.e. whether this file should actually be in the Linux boot partition (as opposed to the windows c drive) and whether the BCD should also point to the Linux boot partition when referring to this partition.

As I mentioned above, I now have the windows boot menu with Windows 8 (which boots successfully) and Oracle Linux (which gives me the error see below for complete wording**). Is the Real-mode Boot sector wrong? Should it point to the Linux boot partition? Is it a problem with my UEFI disk? I don't think it should be because this version of Oracle Linux supports UEFI and my hardware is UEFI.

Has anyone carried out a similar win8/OL dual boot?

2001

-----
** Complete wording of the Linux boot option in the windows boot manager:

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1. Insert your Windows installation disk and restart the computer.
2. Choose your language settings, and then click "next".
3. Click "Repair your computer".

If you do not have this disk, contact you system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance

File: \NST\nst_linux.mbr

Status: 0xc000007b

Info: The selected application or operating system couldn’t be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

Edited by: 2001 on Apr 1, 2013 4:27 PM

Edited by: 2001 on Apr 17, 2013 5:17 PM