Dual booting Windows 8 and elementary OS [Archive]

oldfred

July 23rd, 2014, 10:08 PM

Generally best not to use separate /boot for normal desktops. Users do not maintain or houseclean kernels and it fills up and crashes system. With separate /boot besure to regularly house clean old kernels. You want to keep 2 normally but any more than that is just filling up /boot.

Sony has modified UEFI to only boot Windows you have to use a work around and I though rEFInd worked?

Sony Vaio Pro 13 - To get into UEFI press this "Assist" button BEFORE starting
http://askubuntu.com/questions/458413/how-to-fix-dual-booting-windows-8-and-ubuntu-14-04-on-a-sony-vaio
Issues on rename
https://bugs.launchpad.net/boot-repair/+bug/1315490

One Sony user

The trick was to manually copy the ubuntu Boot directory in place of the \EFI\Boot Directory, and rename shimx64.efi to \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi (not \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi )
Dual booting with Windows 8 on a Sony Vaio
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2153589

Sony Vaio Pro hard coded to only boot "Windows Boot Manager"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2196415
sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l " \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2200818
Sony Vaio Pro SVP-1x21 - Arch but similar settings needed for any Linux Haswell
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Sony_Vaio_Pro_SVP-1x21
Sony Vaio Pro 13 initrd issues - turn off UUID and libata.force=noncq splash parameter needed
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2189052

http://askubuntu.com/questions/486752/dual-boot-win-8-ubuntu-loads-only-win/486789#486789
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2234019
Systems that only boot Windows from UEFI. Work arounds -Often Sony & HP, maybe others
Backup entire efi partition before making changes.
A: Manually rename files either efi\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi and/or /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI to be grub or shim
a1: Rename /efi/boot/bootx64.efi, copy shim or grub into /efi/boot and name it bootx64.efi Then boot harddrive entry in UEFI menu.
a2:(this is the same as what Boot-Repair does in B:.
Rename /efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and copy grub or shim into /efi/Microsoft/Boot and name it bootmfgw.efi Then boot Windows entry to boot to grub menu. You have to manually add a grub menu entry to boot renamed Windows efi file. Grub2's os-prober entry boots bootmfgw.efi entry which is now just grub, so it will not work.

Users who manually moved efi files around see post #6
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2101840
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2219452
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2221498&p=13012109#post13012109

B:Boot_Repair renames Windows bootmgfw.efi. But cannot boot Windows from UEFI only from grub menu with bkpbootmgr.efi entry
Always say no until proven that you only can boot Windows entry from UEFI menu.
buggy-kernel detected. Do you want to activate ? yes (if any choice fails, please retry with the other)
To undo & to rename files to their original names, you just need to tick the "Restore EFI backups" option of Boot-Repair.

Any rename either manually or with Boot-Repair of bootmfgw.efi will need to be redone after a Windows update as it will restore Windows files.

[B]C: Edit Windows BCD, one Alternative to Boot-Repairs rename to make shim have Windows name.
Some systems work better to register grub/shim from inside Windows - for those that keep resetting Windows as default
http://askubuntu.com/questions/371559/grub-not-showing-on-startup-for-windows-8-1-ubuntu-13-10-dual-boot
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi
https://coderwall.com/p/vfyqkg

D: If Description has to be Windows then change UEFI description.
sudo efibootmgr -c -L "Windows Boot Manager" -l " \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi"

E: Some install rEFInd which seems to be another workaround and has nice boot icons.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/index.html
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/secureboot.html
Now has a ppa to make it easy to install:
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html