Windows 11 Boot Option Gone After Installing Bazzite
I have an existing Windows 11 install on a separate SSD. After installing Bazzite the option to boot into my Windows 11 install is gone, both in the boot menu and in the Bios.
I’ve had this happen twice now after installing Bazzite, once over six months ago and again just yesterday.
Running ujust regenerate-grub does not fix the issue.
I’m wondering if this is fixable, or do I need to reinstall Windows 11 again?
I’m also wondering what I’m doing wrong during install that my Bazzite installation is rendering my Windows 11 unbootable every time I install.
6 Replies
Could you run
sudo fdisk -l from the terminal. This will list all the partitions that you have in your system. Might also be worth running efibootmgrSure the output for sudo fdisk -l is:
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: WD Blue SN570 1TB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 34815 32768 16M Microsoft reserved /dev/nvme0n1p2 34816 1953523711 1953488896 931.5G Microsoft basic data Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme1n1p1 2048 1230847 1228800 600M EFI System /dev/nvme1n1p2 1230848 3327999 2097152 1G Linux extended boot /dev/nvme1n1p3 3328000 1953523711 1950195712 929.9G Linux filesystem
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 34815 32768 16M Microsoft reserved /dev/nvme0n1p2 34816 1953523711 1953488896 931.5G Microsoft basic data Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme1n1p1 2048 1230847 1228800 600M EFI System /dev/nvme1n1p2 1230848 3327999 2097152 1G Linux extended boot /dev/nvme1n1p3 3328000 1953523711 1950195712 929.9G Linux filesystem
I think your problem is here, there isn't an EFI partition on the Windows disk. Were both disks present when you installed Windows?
The reason I ask is because I had a similar issue a while back when I had two disks and Windows put it's EFI partition on another drive entirely when I installed. So when I installed Pop OS and nuked an "empty" drive and I ended up with my Windows being unbootable
iirc, I managed to fix it by booting Gparted in Linux Mint and manually creating an EFI partition of about 300 MiB and the filesystem needs to be FAT32. I think you give it a boot flag of efi-boot or something like that. Then you can boot a Windows install USB and it should be able to repair the boot. But before you do that I'd recommend that you unplug the Bazzite disk entirely else Windows might see the EFI partition and might write it's files there instead of using it's own partition.
Yeah they were both present when I installed Windows. I had the exact same thing happen last time where I installed Bazzite and wound up needing to reinstall windows but I'm not sure why this is a problem specifically with Bazzite because when I've plain old Fedora previously with the same exact setup, this never happened.
I might just unplug the samsung SSD and install windows without it. There's nothing I need on my windows install (it's just games that don't play well with linux). Iw as just wondering for the future so I don't have to do this every time I want to reinstall bazzite
That would probably be easier if you don't have much on it.
Btw when you installed Bazzite did you select the disk, remove all partitions and do the default install? Because that would explain why your Windows boot broke.
Yeah I did pick that. I didn't know it would also wipe my Windows boot partition which should have been on the other HD.