Dual Booting Haiku and Windows 7

1

Hi I’m wondering how it’s possible to dual boot with Windows 7. I was planing to install on to a seperate parition on the same hdd. Will haiku installation automaticly install a boot manager ??

2

I don’t think the Haiku boot loader currently supports this.

You will probably have to install a boot manager like GRUB:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

3

Although it is not installed automatically, Haiku does include its own boot manager - bootman. I believe that it can be configured/installed by running 

bootman
from the terminal.

I am still using the BeOS R5 version of bootman on my PC, but I’ll try Haiku’s bootman when I get home.

4

As much as I like bootman, you may want to have a look at the Window$-based bootloader EasyBCD – http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 . It’s relatively easy to use and isn’t a pain to configure like GRUB is.

5

Any suggestions on how to use EasyBCD to include Haiku in Windows 7 Boot Loader?
I’ve looked at it and there is nothing I can make heads or tails of.

Thanks.

6

Actually, bootman is very easy to set up and use. I recently tried it for the first time, since GRUB2 kept failing to boot Haiku for some reason. As mentioned above, you can type the “bootman” command in the terminal. A rather straight-forward wizard will show up. Windows 7 usually creates one system partition and one 100MB boot partition. Don’t mind the system partition, just use the 100MB one. As well, make sure your Haiku partition is also checked. :wink: If you want to use Linux you may have issues though, but it may be solveable, I’m not sure. If you’re not interested in that though, I see no problem with using bootman.

7

Just to confirm this: I’m dual booting Haiku and Windows 7 using bootman, and it works beautifully. It might be that it would not in a different context however, so to clarify, here is how I made my current setup:

1. Installed Windows 7 Home Premium, wiping my drive completely. I allowed the installer to use the drive as it desired, and it created two partitions: 1 small, and one large. I also made a third partition for playing with Linux and Haiku.
2. Installed Haiku on my third partition, then, using the LiveCD (nightly I believe), I opened a terminal and wrote “bootman”. I followed the steps, and bootman installed itself on my MBR (I love the fact that bootman backs up your MBR to drive in case it fails).

Bootman now gives me three options when I start:

  1. The small partition made by the windows installer
  2. The large partition with Windows 7 on it
  3. The Haiku drive

Selecting the small partition boots Windows, so it must contain a Microsoft bootloader and its data. The second parition does not boot, but fails with a message that it’s missing “bootmnr” or similar. The third partition boots Haiku.

I must confess I cannot remember having this smaller windows boot pratition in my last windows installation though. Back then, I chose a partition already made when I installed Windows, and if I had the same situation now, I’m not sure I could have used bootman to boot from the main Windows partition (since it was just one).

But, if your setup is like mine, and you have this small NTFS boot partition, bootman appears to work great (:

Cheers, Knut

8

Another Window 7 and BeOS dual boot on a netbook NB205. And yes, I used bootman.

9

I am triple booting Windows 7, Haiku and Linux, with bootman now. If you want to boot Linux too, the key is to install GRUB to your Linux partition, and not to the MBR. bootman, quite understandably, cannot boot Linux directly since Linux requires that you specify which kernel to boot, and possibly some other arguments. If GRUB is installed to the Linux partition though, bootman can boot the partition, and so GRUB will show up when you’ve chosen the “Linux” (or whatever you may wish to call it) option. Just thought I’d share this information in case anyone is interested.

10

How I use / install Haiku R1, BeOS R5 and Windows 7 to my computer:

  1. Boot Haiku or BeOS
  2. Partitioning the HDD with DriveSetup:
    1. Create 5 GB partition for Haiku (BFS)
    2. Create 5 GB partition for BeOS (BFS)
    3. Create 30 GB partition for Windows (NTFS)
    4. Leave the other space empty
  3. Install Haiku
  4. Install BeOS (512 RAM limited)
  5. Install Windows
  6. Boot to Haiku or BeOS (from CD), and install the bootmanager (bootman), than the boot order will be: Haiku > BeOS > Windows
  7. Because of Windows will (may) not boot after the bootman, I boot to the Windows 7 Setup DVD, and run "Repair my Computer", what will correct the Windows startup
  8. Finished
  9. (From Windows I will create a partition for the free space, like FAT32, than I can share files easy across the OS-s, and the Windows will not install any other things (like swap) to this partition)

Maybe, this sounds difficult, but it is not that :slight_smile:

This is my style for the multi OS problem, and I use this in the past and in the future too.

11

Just to confirm I was able to set up dual boot windows7 and Haiku with the Haiku bootman.

I kept a 100Mb partition at top disk in case I needed to use GRUB.
Then a 60Gb, clean Windows 7 Enterprise (without the extra 100Mb partition Windows want to make)
Then a 10Gb, BeFS/Haiku

Installed Windows
then booted Haiku CD and installed it.

Rebooted in Haiku using CD (space bar to choose disk boot)
From terminal, use bootman to install/rewrite the MBR, using the defaults set up by bootman.
I just removed the first entry which it sets for my empty 100Mb partition.

Windows 7 rebooted just fine from bootman (did not have to repair anything).
Haiku booted fine as well of course.

12

GAG is what I use if anyone else is interested. It works a treat, and setup is so so easy.

13

I use GAG too. I triple boot Haiku, Windows XP and Linux with it and have no problems when GRUB is installed into partiton and not MBR.

14

Use o GAG 4.10
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/GAG-d-Download-909.html

very easy: unzip the windows and burn a cd in iso format, then restart the cd and install, it recognizes up to 9 to boot and is free.

muito fácil: descompact no windows e queime um cd em formato iso, reinicie pelo cd e instale, ele reconhece até 9 opções de boot e é gratis.

15

[quote=blitze]Any suggestions on how to use EasyBCD to include Haiku in Windows 7 Boot Loader?
I’ve looked at it and there is nothing I can make heads or tails of.

Thanks.[/quote]

Yes, me too couldn’t understand why there was no topic about using std Win7 Boot Loader, so I’ve found the solution by myself: https://www.haiku-os.org/community/forum/boot_haiku_partition_using_simple_vistawin7_default_boot_manager_thanks_easybcd :wink: