Adding an entry for Archlinux's Syslinux doesn't work.

K

KaoDome

Member
Hello, I just installed Archlinux using the Archboot image, after the installation is finished you get a choice of which loader you want to use and I selected Syslinux (my system is a BIOS based one). Then I chose to install the loader in the separate boot partition I have.

After rebooting into Windows 7 I added a new entry for Arch using the latest beta 2.2 Build 173, and selected the partition where I installed the loader.

Rebooting and choosing that entry from the menu shows "Operating system error" or something like that, what could be the cause for it?
 
Hello, thank you for the fast reply.

I've tried using build 172 but the outcome is the same, the exact error message is "Operating system load error". I saw that the BCD entry points to a file called nst_linux.mbr which I understand would be the MBR information for Syslinux, replacing it with a stock one out of Syslinux 4.05 produces the error "Missing operating system", but the outcome is the same.
 
I apologize, I misread your initial post. Syslinux support does not go through NeoGrub with EasyBCD and, as such, switching to b172 would have no effect.

Is Arch linux installed on a separate drive?
 
It's installed in the same drive, this is the current layout:

Primary partition: NTFS, Windows 7, 50GB
Primary partition: NTFS, Windows XP, 50GB
Primary partition: Ext4, /boot, 150MB (here is where Syslinux is installed, this is the partition I select when adding the entry)
Extended block:
Logical partition: Ext4, /, 9GB
Logical partition: Ext4, /home, 20GB
Logical partition: ReiserFS, /var, 3GB
Logical partition: Swap, swap, 2GB
Logical partition: NTFS, Data, 163GB
 
Hello, I fixed the entry and can now boot my installation from BCD.

To do it booted up again using the live environment and overwrote the MBR file nst_linux.mbr with the first 512 bytes from the partition, which would contain the loader code for Syslinux as it was installed.

With the layout I described before and having the Windows 7 partition mounted in /mnt the command I used was:

dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/mnt/NST/nst_linux.mbr bs=512 count=1

After that the entry in BCD is works perfectly. How is EasyBCD creating that file currently?
 
I see... after trying some things the trouble seemed to be with the installation itself, apparently when selecting to install the bootloader into a partition it wouldn't install correctly; there's nothing wrong in EasyBCD.

Thank you for the answers and sorry for the trouble caused, kind regards,
Kao.
 
No problem. You had me worried, I was going through the code trying to figure out what went wrong :smile:
 
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