Unable to boot to Windows after following auto mounting guide
Hey all. I followed this guide and now my grub and BIOS doesnt show Windows as bootable. I can access the drive through Linux but can no longer boot from there.
After I selected 'Take Ownership" and selected "Recursive", I tried to run the "sudo systemctl daemon-reload && sudo mount -a" command but it said the drive did not exist. I thought I could restart and try again. After the restart, the command successfully worked but now I can no longer see my Windows install.
Is there something I did wrong?
Universal Blue
GNOME Disks Auto-Mount Guide
[GNOME] This comes pre-installed on GNOME images. Instructions [GNOME_Disks] Open GNOME Disks (gnome-disk-utility) Locate the disk and partition you want to mount Click the cog icon on the partition Select “Edit Mount Options” Turn off “User Session Default” Check: “Mount at system startup” and “Show in user interface” In the space where th...
Solution:Jump to solution
but what i suspect is your WD black had an efi partition for whatever reason
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ujust regenerate-grub
none of the things in the guide you linked touches grub or the efi and will not affect the boot menuWeird. Well I suppose I will need to reinstall Windows.
Do you have any idea why I wouldn't be able to boot to Windows again? I reinstalled Bazzite so maybe that may have caused it?
I think this happened to me last time I reinstalled and auto mounted my partition
no idea, i dont use windows so i dont dual boot
only thing i can think of is if you messed around with the efi partition
you might have nuked the windows bootloader
by mistake
can you check if the windows bootloader still exist in the efi
if you repair it with a windows installer it will nuke the bazzite one
Would it nuke the bootloader if it was on a separate drive? Seems odd that it would touch the Windows bootloader. My Linux and Windows are on two separate drives.
I'll check when I get home from work.
Then you just have messed up bios settings probably
Hmm. Is there a way to fix this? Last time I checked my boot order, my Windows boot selection had WD_BLACK listed in parenthesis. Maybe it was somehow sharing the EFI partition with Linux?
Where's your other drive
It's not listed there anymore. This was a picture of it after the reinstall.
But it's on my second nvme slot
What happens if you press the boot options
If I press either bazzite or fedora, they both take make to Bazzite
I'm guessing that Windows and Bazzite both shared a EFI and since I reinstall and wiped the EFI from my last install, it removed the info for Windows?
I'm not too familiar with how this works
There should be an option to show and reorder the boot options
If you have 2 drives no
I think you are looking at the options. You can hit enter, I can reorder them.
did you replace any drives recently?
or remove any
Nope. I just reinstalled with the gnome version and set up auto mount.
ok well that rules out the windows bootloader being on a drive no longer present in the system (the windows installer has a bad habit of flinging the bootloader on the first efi partition it sees if one exists, even though you tell it to install to a different disk)
can you check the efi partition on the windows disk from bazzite
see what it contains?
prob good practice when installing os es on different drives is to remove or unplug drives with different os, so it does not see their uefi?
yes it is
you can also optionally disable the connectors in bios
that works as well
how do you do that?
your windows disk is missing the efi partition
yeah you fucked up that windowsi nstall youre cooked
did you install bazzite first and then windows?
you managed to make it take 2 drives
check your other drives and see if there is another efi partition
how did you do that, good luck
you said your previous entry mentioned the WD black
check that disk
that looks correct for just bazzite
yep
whats in that efi partition
i can go deeper if you need me too
youre cooked
damn
yeah you messed something up
unless there is another efi partition on the other disks
no, i dont see any
Solution
but what i suspect is your WD black had an efi partition for whatever reason
and windows used that when being installed because it saw it
ah
that is probably it
this is why tech youtubers that know their stuff tell you to disconnect other drives when installing windows
because AFAIK, i never saw a EFI partition in that drive
to avoid that problem
ah okay
never heard that before
but ofc its a windows problem lol
trust me
everyone who experience this is caught off guard by it
because in typical windows fashion its not documented (officially) anywhere that the installer does that
gotta love windows!
idk a safe way to fix the bootloader unless maybe
resize windows, make a new efi partition on the right drive then try repair the bootloader with the bazzite disk disconnected
idk if that will work
im gonna try to disable my bazzite drive and see if I can reinstall
i think my gigabyte bios will allow me to do that
whats that 1.1gb partiton for just after the uefi one?
thats /boot
dont ask why its 1.1
(nobody knows)
and it contains your pinned deployments
what is a pinned deployment?
an image you have pinned
Great. My BIOS has no options to disable my nvme drives :moyaiguy:
think of it as you pinning a specific update so you have a fallback if an update completely breaks
sounds like it is time to get the trusty screwdriver
open and disconnect
is that like brtfs thing
Yeah... I absolutely hate doing this because I have a massive GPU with a massive support bracket that is a PITA to uninstall from the Mobo.
That's one great thing about SATA is that its so easy to disconnect and reconnect
it is an ostree thing
ah
thx learning
that is what my single dual boot partiton setup
i had to make a second uefi as the one windows created was too small
yeah this is someone that followed the dual boot guide /\
So my bazzite install looks completely fine?
Just need to disconnect the Bazzite drive and install it on my secondary one?
just need to disconnect bazzite drive and then reinstall windows.
or you need to make an efi partition on the windows drive first then disconnect the bazzite drive and then attempt a windows bootloader repair
install windows yes
or that
place the efi partition on the end of the drive if you do that
no idea if doing the bootloader repair like that will work though
but its worth a shot if you dont want to lose any data on the windows drive
when making the efi partition it might be named an ESP partition or something like that
windows efi is usually 100mb
idk if they increased that with windows 11 though
do 300mb
yeah play it safe
has to be at the end
I'll just save the hassle and start over with that drive. I didn't have anything important on it
I wish Linux had good VR and game modding support or else I would just use strictly Linux
Oh oh well