#[SOLVED] Wanting to reinstall Linux, but GRUB and Microsoft Boot are on same partition

21 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

turbid star
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So, I'd like to do some reorganizing because my partitions have gotten really fucked up over time (a lot of extra space in between partitions, weird shit like that), and also I just have a really messy installation - old files, bloat, etc.

I thought I would reinstall arch, right? So the first step is to figure out which partitions are Arch and which are Windows, because I'm dual booting.

When I first installed arch on this machine, I used archinstall (or at least I'm 90% sure I remember doing so), and it set up some stuff really weirdly.

The most important and confusing part being that GRUB and Microsoft Boot Manager are somehow on the same partition?

sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0003
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0003,0000
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager    HD(2,GPT,...
Boot0003* grub_uefi    HD(2,GPT,...

sdc      8:32   0 465.8G  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:33   0   300G  0 part
├─sdc2   8:34   0   260M  0 part /efi
├─sdc3   8:35   0   128M  0 part
├─sdc4   8:36   0  1000M  0 part
├─sdc5   8:37   0    30G  0 part /
└─sdc6   8:38   0  67.7G  0 part /home

/dev/sdc2: LABEL_FATBOOT="SYSTEM" LABEL="SYSTEM" UUID="..." BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="..."
/dev/sdc5: LABEL="Arch Linux" UUID="..." BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="..."
/dev/sdc3: PARTLABEL="Microsoft reserved partition" PARTUUID="..."
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="Windows" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="747A03A97A036768" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="13175762-7f8f-4f6d-a812-f5d59c8627b7"
/dev/sdc6: LABEL="Arch Home" UUID="44cb8649-9fce-4bed-a155-9edfb02e8881" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="8a8bebad-0b21-415d-8781-a5c832682b00"
/dev/sdc4: LABEL="WinRE_DRV" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="24DA0401DA03CDCC" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="b351e9df-739f-45c0-b9d5-a8eed8ad5bcf"
``` (omitted uuids for message length)
So, if I want to reinstall Arch (and GRUB), what should I do here? Do I have to reinstall windows?
dry nacelle
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Try doing the ls boot

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to see what is in the boot folder with both grub and windows boot manager

turbid star
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ls /boot?

dry nacelle
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ls /sdXY/boot

turbid star
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root / is on sdc5

dry nacelle
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Yes, but what about the directory in which both windows boot manager and grub are located

turbid star
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so /boot, i guess, on sdc5

turbid star
dry nacelle
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oh ok

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try taking a peek at sdc5 then

turbid star
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ls /

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is just my entire installation

dry nacelle
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cant u just delete the whole partition with grub and windows boot manager

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or will that corrupt windows

turbid star
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if i delete the partition with windows boot manager...

windows will not boot

dry nacelle
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makes sense

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im just dumb af

devout echo
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Do an fdisk -l

turbid star
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alright, tbh i realized my windows install was equally bloated so i just decided to wipe the drive and reinstall both.

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this will make my life much easier