Solution: When I formatted all my drives to install Linux on one and Windows on the other, I kept both connected and they share EFI boot partition as a result. Every time I reinstall Linux it formats the drive and therefore deletes the Windows’s EFI Boot as well. One way is to fix this is to reinstall Windows while disconnecting the drive you have Linux on. Or you can move the boot files if you don’t want to do that.
I used this guide: https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/changing-windows-boot-manager-drive.3571420/post-21561626
Also remember to delete the Microsoft folder in the boot folder on Linux after you’ve checked that the new boot loader is working.
OP:
Currently dual booting as I need Windows for a few tasks and ganes Linux just won’t do. Since setting everything up I’ve reinstalled Linux twice, both times I’ve lost the ability to boot into windows and have needed to reinstall it.
Disk doesn’t show at all in Grub, tried all kinds of things but it just doesn’t show as a bootable OS. It doesn’t show in the boot options in the BIOS or the boot menu for my motherboard. Drive shows up and all the files are still on it. So my guess is the Windows bootloader somehow installs on the same disk that I have Linux on.
I run Linux(Fedora) and Windows on two separate drives.
Windows take forever to install. Anything I can do now to prevent this from happening if I need to reinstall Linux or if I wanna to some distro hopping?
Just to be clear, everything is working right now. But I want to prevent having to reinstall Windows every time I change distro or reinstall my Linux OS
Do you have the os-prober package installed? I haven’t used Fedora in over a decade, so I don’t know if it’s a default or not.
Yes that’s present and working.
Issue is that my BIOS doesn’t find it either. So something happens when I install a linux distro that breaks the Windows boot loader.
When I reinstall Windows, I can update the grub and it shows up. (It’s also back in the BIOS after reinstalling)
I was doing some quick research and saw someone suggest installing each OS with the other drive disconnected. That way you can first get each one working individually and there’s no chance of one messing with the other’s bootloader.
I was hoping to avoid that, but that’s gonna be my next move.
Unless I forget and break windows again. Words can’t describe how tired I am of choosing the 37 different options during the install, updating the OS 4 times and installing my apps and deleting bloat. 😂 Windows 11 is great and all, but Microsoft loves to make it unbearable to use.
Install Windows, but leave drive open or a partial space on windows drive. When you install Linux, don’t let it install the EFI boot into the Windows EFI boot partition. Instead have the partition manager build a new boot partition+root home etc. Grub will install on its own partition, OS prober should find the Windows drive too, and it will add a chainloader entry to grub. Set your machine to always boot from Linux grub, if you want windows you select it in grub and it hands boot over to windows boot. This way they are isolated and Windows never knows that Linux grub exists and will leave it alone.
same, and make sure fast boot or whatever fast start up is disabled in windows
Last I checked, if you want to dual boot, you HAVE to install Windows first (or disconnect the linux drive before hand), otherwise it will mess with your boot partitions on all drives.
Windows is also prone to mess with boot partitions randomly long after the initial install, so be wary
Did you install os-prober so that GRUB can look for other OSes?
Fucking hell that’s a real pain in the arse solution you have there.
If you have two drives then one will be sda and the other will be sdb. Install Windows first on sda (which will mean the boot sector is on sda) then install linux to sdb.
When you get to the part in the Linux installation process where it asks where you want the boot partition tell it to install on sda.
Then anytime you want to install and try a different distro just install to sdb with the boot sector on sda and grub will always detect and add Windows to the boot menu.
Ran that configuration for 10yrs zero issues.
This solution took all about 2 minutes. Now it won’t matter what I do when I reinstall Linux. My Windows boot is not on that same drive any more.
If I would have known my Windows boot was on the M.2 drive I install Linux on, I would not tell the Linux installer to format that drive, obviously.
It’s an Issue I created myself by not thinking about Windows’ limitations. But this solution is pretty quick if you already reinstalled Windows again.
Isn’t it easier to boot using the bios ? zero maintenance. zero chance of an update fucking it up.
Not sure what you mean here. This issue is related to moving Windows’s boot files to a different drive. Only relevant if you want to use the automatic partition option while installing a distro.
Booting in BIOS won’t make any difference whatsoever if the boot loader is gone.
I daily drive Aurora (which is an image based distro) from an m2 caddy on my work laptop.
These kind of distros do not allow for manual partitioning, so they just use the whole drive.
My BIOS is set to prioritize Aurora.
My m2 caddy can be used on any other hardware and Aurora will boot just fine.
This is a completely different scenario?
As I wrote earlier. Windows doesn’t make a new EFI boot partition if there’s one on your system already. Regardless which drive it’s on and which drive you choose to install Windows to. It’s always been that way, I just forgot when I installed Linux on my old Windows drive and reinstalled Windows on a new drive. So when you do install Linux again after this, and choose automatic partitioning, it formats the EFI partition Windows used.
My solution is just how you move the Windows EFI partition and it’s files to a different drive, effectively isolating the Windows boot loader completely from the Linux drive.
I can chose which OS to boot into either by changing boot order in the BIOS, selecting it in the BIOS boot menu or in Linux’s Grub menu.
What I failed to convey is: that method doesn’t work with image based distros, unless you manually edit the boot partition maybe?
This method shouldn’t have anything to do with what distro you’re gonna be using as the fix itself happens in Windows.
It’s a Windows fix relevant for dual booting Linux.
Edit: I used this exact method when I had two Windows installs on different drives and wanted to remove the original one from my system. Back in the Windows 7 days.
