WIN7/MINT dual boot EUFI and SSD iRST, is it possible?

[cornleader]

I had a miserable fail trying to dual boot Windows 7 and Mint on an Inspiron 7720SE. See previous thread HERE. I haven't used linux in years and wanted to give it a try again however I have no choice to use Windows for work and I like to play games from time to time. Thanks to srs5694 for all your help dealing with my stupidity on the previous thread.

I am about to wipe the machine clean instead of fixing it. I May have erased the cache info on the SSD so my windows install is a mess and I think I installed Mint to the wrong partition. So I want to take what I learned and start from scratch and do a fresh dual boot install. First some general questions.

I want to be able to have windows installed and take advantage if the iRST, if I am not mistaken this requires me to have the SSD set up on a RAID. I want to have MINT installed alongside. In a nutshell I want Win7 with iRST using the SSD and Mint to show up in my boot screen.

The machine came with WIN8 and in EUFI mode. No idea what any of this meant but it caused some major issues for me and now I'm at a point to start fresh. I changed from EUFI to Legacy mode. I'm going to wipe the hard drive and create 3 partitions to start, 2 primary's 250GB and 500GB, (1TB drive), and the rest I will leave alone for Mint. I will install Windows to the 250GB, and have the 500GB for storage. I will install Mint to the unpartitioned space that is left over. I will do this all via legacy mode.

I'm not asking for any windows assistance here but is there anyone else out there who has done something similar or know if this is possible?

[cornleader]

well i have reinstalled windows and set up iRST, for the most part. Back to where I was. When I try to install Mint, It doesn't recognize my windows install. No partitions are displayed on /dev/hda.

Here is my bootinfoscript output.

Code: Select all

                  Boot Info Script 0.61      [1 April 2012]


============================= Boot Info Summary: ===============================

 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda.
 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb.
 => Syslinux MBR (4.04 and higher) is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdd.
 => Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M7529.

sda1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ntfs
    Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy

sda2: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ntfs
    Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy

sda3: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ext2
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
mount: /dev/sda3 already mounted or sda3 busy

sdb1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
mount: /dev/sda3 already mounted or sda3 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sdd1: __________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ntfs
    Boot sector type:  Windows Vista/7: NTFS
    Boot sector info:  No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
    Operating System:  
    Boot files:        

isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75291: __________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
mount: /dev/sda3 already mounted or sda3 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75292: __________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
mount: /dev/sda3 already mounted or sda3 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75293: __________________________________________________

    File system:       
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 
    Mounting failed:   fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
fuse: mount failed: Device or resource busy
mount: /dev/sda3 already mounted or sda3 busy
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

============================ Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sda1    *          2,048       206,847       204,800   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda2             206,848   524,290,047   524,083,200   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/sda3         524,290,048 1,572,866,047 1,048,576,000   6 FAT16


Drive: sdb _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 32.0 GB, 32017047552 bytes
251 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3954 cylinders, total 62533296 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sdb1               2,048    16,386,047    16,384,000  84 OS/2 hidden C: drive


Drive: sdd _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdd: 8235 MB, 8235515904 bytes
63 heads, 21 sectors/track, 12157 cylinders, total 16084992 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/sdd1    *          5,472    16,084,991    16,079,520   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS


Drive: isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M7529 _____________________________________________________________________

Disk /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M7529: 1000.2 GB, 1000200470528 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121600 cylinders, total 1953516544 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes

Partition  Boot  Start Sector    End Sector  # of Sectors  Id System

/dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75291   *          2,048       206,847       204,800   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75292            206,848   524,290,047   524,083,200   7 NTFS / exFAT / HPFS
/dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75293        524,290,048 1,572,866,047 1,048,576,000   6 FAT16


"blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________

Device           UUID                                   TYPE       LABEL

/dev/loop0                                              squashfs   
/dev/sda1        FA6A83446A82FD1F                       ntfs       System Reserved
/dev/sda2        26A23CB5A23C8AF7                       ntfs       
/dev/sda3        23cc74fe-ab23-46d5-9ddf-b20764579d5c   ext2       
/dev/sdd1        F88A89FE8A89B9A0                       ntfs       
/dev/sr0                                                iso9660    Linux Mint 14 MATE 64-bit

================================ Mount points: =================================

Device           Mount_Point              Type       Options

/dev/loop0       /rofs                    squashfs   (ro,noatime)
/dev/sdd1        /media/mint/F88A89FE8A89B9A0 fuseblk    (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)
/dev/sr0         /cdrom                   iso9660    (ro,noatime)


======================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc: ========================

Unknown BootLoader on isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75291


Unknown BootLoader on isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75292


Unknown BootLoader on isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75293



========= Devices which don't seem to have a corresponding hard drive: =========

sdc 

=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75291: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75291: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75292: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75292: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75293: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/isw_bbcejiijdf_WX81A72M75293: No such file or directory
  No volume groups found

[cornleader]

I guess the big issue is my raid 0 array being used for my iRST in windows. I confirmed that the SSD was not using GPT and I have all the features of iRST set up. Also I installed windows in Legacy mode, not EUFI. So this means that the following drives are using raid 0.
/dev/sda
/dev/sdb

So my question is as follows... Can I install Mint as a dual boot system on a partition on /dev/sda that is part of a raid 0 array?
The Mint live CD does not recognize any partitions on my machine during the install.