Q4OS Forum

Cassiel

Member

Registered: 2025-01-10

Posts: 4

Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

It's been a long time that I installed and tried out a Q4OS version and I would like to know if it is still possible to install the newest Q4OS on a Legacy/BIOS hard drive in parallel with Windows (10 and XP in my case). If yes, is this possible for all versions of Q4OS (i.e. live and install-cd, Plasma and Trinity, 64 and 32bit), or only for some of them?
I would like the bootloader of Q4OS (grub?) to be installed in the MBR of my first hard drive and be able to boot also Windows XP and Windows 10. According to a recent experience, this does not work anymore for Linux Mint 22: the grub boot menu is not displayed anymore; it appears that Linux Mint requires the other OS to be installed on UEFI drives.
Thanks a lot.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,788

Website

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

Welcome to the forum @Cassiel.

... I would like to know if it is still possible to install the newest Q4OS on a Legacy/BIOS hard drive in parallel with Windows (10 and XP in my case). If yes, is this possible for all versions of Q4OS (i.e. live and install-cd, Plasma and Trinity, 64 and 32bit), or only for some of them?

Yes, for all versions of Q4OS.

Cassiel

Member

Registered: 2025-01-10

Posts: 4

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

Thanks a lot for your quick response and this wonderful news.
Well I think I will go for a live media then. Since I have no experience with Calamares Installer (I'm rather used to Ubiquity), I have another question:
I have the following partitions on my hard drives:

sudo parted -l

Modell: ATA Samsung SSD 850 (scsi)
Festplatte  /dev/sda:  500GB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/512B
Partitionstabelle: msdos
Disk-Flags: 

Nummer  Anfang  Ende   Größe   Typ       Dateisystem     Flags
 1      1049kB  106MB  105MB   primary   ntfs            boot
 2      106MB   157GB  157GB   primary   ntfs
 3      157GB   210GB  52,4GB  primary   ext4
 4      210GB   500GB  290GB   extended                  LBA
 5      210GB   262GB  52,4GB  logical   ext4
 6      262GB   267GB  5243MB  logical   linux-swap(v1)  swap
 7      267GB   500GB  233GB   logical   ntfs


Modell: ATA TOSHIBA DT01ACA2 (scsi)
Festplatte  /dev/sdb:  2000GB
Sektorgröße (logisch/physisch): 512B/4096B
Partitionstabelle: msdos
Disk-Flags: 

Nummer  Anfang  Ende    Größe   Typ       Dateisystem  Flags
 1      32,3kB  73,4GB  73,4GB  primary   ntfs         boot
 2      73,4GB  2000GB  1927GB  extended               LBA
 5      73,4GB  1319GB  1245GB  logical   ntfs
 6      1319GB  1840GB  521GB   logical   ntfs
 7      1840GB  1892GB  52,4GB  logical   ext4
 8      1892GB  2000GB  108GB   logical   ext4 

sda1 and sda2 are occupied by Windows 10, sdb1 by Windows XP, sda3 shall become Q4OS "/" and sda5 Q4OS "/home". sdb7 and sdb8 are Linux data and backup drives which I would not like to format during installation, contrary to sda3 and sda5.
The bootloader of Q4OS should go to sda, but keep sdb intact (for WinXP).
So does the installer allow me to:
(1) select specific partitions for the Q4OS system, each time giving me the option to define a mount point and to select formatting or not?
(2) choose the location of the bootloader?

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,788

Website

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

Ad1 Not directly, you will have to select the manual partitioning option in Calamares and go through it.
Ad2 Yes

In anyway, we recommend you to backup any important data before starting the install procedure.

Cassiel

Member

Registered: 2025-01-10

Posts: 4

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

The installation of Q4OS went smoothly. The only thing is that I had to manually activate the OS prober in /etc/default/grub to create the entries for Win10 and WinXP to be able to boot them.

However, there is one thing I really do not understand: under Q4OS, sda and sdb are constantly interchanged!
For example, during installation, the hard drives were as represented in my former post, but after the reboot, the SSD was sdb instead of sda.
Also, the first time when I boot Q4OS after having booted (via grub) Win10 or WinXP, the hard drives are again as represented in my former post, but when I boot once again Q4OS, the drives are again interchanged. I have no explanation for this, the more so as Win 10 and Win XP are on different hard drives.
However, when I boot WinXP via the BIOS (i.e. not via grub), it does not have any effect on the drive order under Q4OS during the next boot, i.e. the drives remain interchanged (SSD on sdb).

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,788

Website

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

So did Q4OS name the block devices in the opposite order to Windows? That shouldn't matter, just leave it as is. Or is it a problem for you and if so, describe the issue please.

Cassiel

Member

Registered: 2025-01-10

Posts: 4

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

There is no big problem since fstab uses UUIDs and so the system is booting in any case.
I just find it a bit confusing that
(1) the hard drive from which I boot according to my BIOS setting (and where grub is installed) is not (always) sda in Q4OS
(2) indeed in this case the order of hard drives is different from what is shown in Win 10 or XP
(3) the order frequently changes in Q4OS, i.e. sometimes the boot drive is sda and sometimes sdb.
In special situations this might lead to operating errors. For example, in a situation where I needed to do a "sudo grub-install /dev/sdX", I could more easily select the wrong drive by mistake.
So if someone experienced similar behaviour and knew a miracle solution for a more consistent use of block device files under Q4OS I would be grateful.
If not, as I said, it is not a big problem

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,788

Website

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

Yes, we understand now. If the order changes at random, it's a real issue. There should be methods to make the naming fixed, most likely via udev rules. We will try to find a solution for Debian and post back.

In anyway the investigation will be difficult as we are not able to reproduce this issue.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,788

Website

Re: Install Q4OS on Legacy/BIOS hard drive

This article may be helpful https://wiki.debian.org/Part-UUID