UPDATE: So after I broke grub, I tried reinstalling Fedora. Now windows has disappeared from BIOS
UPDATE: So after I broke grub, I tried reinstalling Fedora. Now windows has disappeared from BIOS
EDIT: So after all that, I was able to reinstall windows and download Macrium reflect + my backup. First time I tried to recover it, it failed for some reason, but the second time around I was able to restore it successfully. I'm now back where I started, thank you everyone!
I'm not done with Linux yet, but I think I'm going to try and run it in a good VM for the time being. When I'm done with classes, or when I get a separate device, I will give it another go.
Post 1: https://lemmy.ca/post/3709382
Post 2: https://lemmy.ca/post/3863438
Yesterday I could at least change the order in the BIOS to boot windows. Now I can't even do that.
I think when reinstalling, I must have overwritten something (the EFI?). I saw some other people that had a very similar experience, and the advice was to reinstall Windows. I'm currently downloading Windows installation media on another computer and I'm going to try and reinstall windows now.
This just keeps getting worse and worse, and thank you for the help while I struggle through this.
If anyone has other tips, I'd appreciate it :)
Jesus, stop. You probably only removed the boot entry, happened to me before. Download Windows ISO, put it on a pendrive, boot into it and navigate to the terminal. Then look up a guide on how to restore the boot entry, should be just couple of simple commands and you're done.
If you are too lazy, at least boot into Linux, mount the Windows drive and back up your stuff.
Even this is not necessary, you can repair it from Fedora itself, if you know your way around efibootmgr. Unfortunately given the rest of the posts so far, I'm afraid that's not the case
Yea I don't think that would have been wise for me to try
Thank you! This is completely on me for just rushing ahead and accepting the loss, but I'll save this for if I run into this again. The only option on the recovery screen I didn't try was the terminal.
https://woshub.com/how-to-repair-uefi-bootloader-in-windows-8/
I did find this guide, is this looking close to what you went through?
Thankfully I did backup my stuff before starting the process so that's what I was planning on doing. Just moving the backup files onto my computer now
This happens, because the stupid windows bootloader installs itself onto the same partition as the fedora bootloader instead of making it's own. So when you reinstall fedora, the windows bootloader is deleted. Look up how to reinstall windows bootloader
On EFI systems all bootloaders are supposed to reside on a single partition. EFI does not support multiple 'EFI system partitions', so operating systems have to share a single one. And this is usually not a problem if it is the one Windows choose. The problem most often is broken EFI firmware which fails to correctly handle adding and removing boot entries. Or Windows, which fails to boot if anything changes (disk order and such), even though everything is still available.
This is technically only true if you have a single disk. The EFI spec allows for a single EFI partition per disk, so you can definitely have multiple in a system. I know this, because my setup has multiple EFI partitions. Windows doesn't like it, and it will try it's hardest to share a single one with Linux, but if it's on its own disk, you can set it up with its own EFI partition using the command prompt.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Undercover Windows agent terrorizing linux newcomers /s
How could they
Getting rid of Windows sounds like a feature to me
Some BIOSes have trouble booting anything other than Windows, so some distros default to clobbering the Windows Boot Manager and trying to manage everything from GRUB. It sounds to me like this is what happened to you except it somehow got borked.
If the Windows install is still present on your drive it should be possible to restore the Windows Boot Manager. Then you won't be able to boot Linux but you'll at least be able to get into Windows.
Try booting off Windows install media and running Startup Repair using the following instructions: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/windows-boot-issues-troubleshooting#method-1-startup-repair-tool
If that doesn't work try one of these solutions:
https://superuser.com/questions/460762/how-can-i-repair-the-windows-8-efi-bootloader
https://superuser.com/questions/612830/how-to-reinstall-windows-boot-manager-on-efi-partition
Good luck!
Also relevant xkcd
No joke, I'm trying to fix a family member's laptop's wifi issues while I wait.
So I'm somewhere between 6-10 hours
Also thank you!
what dot20 said was similar to what I had to do in order to get the Windows boot option back after GRUB couldn't find it after a Fedora install. As long as you can still see your Windows drive when you boot up the Windows Install Media, you should be able to rebuild its EFI entry.
As an addendum, here is a link to the Fedora docs for what to do in Fedora after you manage to rebuild Windows' EFI stuff.
If I can get back Windows, I think I'm going to cut my loses and just use Linux in a VM or through WSL. Maybe someday when I get a new separate device, I can try learning again.
At least I have a week before classes start again to get this sorted out :')
Is the windows partition is still there? You may be able to use one of the repair options from the install media to re-add windows to EFI instead of a full reinstall.
Yes the partition was still there, and I tried all the different repair options just now, but they all refused unfortunately.
I'm mentally prepared for a full wipe, even assuming my macrium reflect backup didn't work. Most of my important stuff is saved to google drive, and I can reinstall my games and download my movies / tv again.
Anything else probably wasn't important enough :(
try going into root and running grub-update. also, do not run it like: "$ sudo grub-update", but as "$ su" and then "$ grub-update" that might fix the problem. also ensure you can boot into windows from bios.
Many years ago I would reinstall everything if I break something. Today I don't see how to break things to a point that just resin stalling would be a solution. Probably by booting a live you can fix whatever you broke.
Yes that's fair, and I think if I spent more time on it I could have just fixed the windows boot using the terminal in the installation media
I just gave up at that point and wanted to quickly get it up and running again 😄
Are you booting in legacy BIOS or UEFI mode?
Legacy only supports one bootloader per drive, which should be grub. If you're in legacy mode, windows was probably thrown out of there so it doesn't show up anymore. Grub can still call the windows bootloader if you configure it accordingly.
The arch wiki page on grub has a section explaining the details.
It's UEFI from what I can tell, at least that's what comes up in the BIOS
In your BIOS do you have the option to add a new boot entry?
On my Dell laptop, I lost my Windows boot option once, but all I had to do was go into the BIOS, add a new boot option, and point it to the Windows EFI loader: EFI\Boot\Microsoft\bootmgrfw.efi
(I'm going off memory, so I could be off slightly with the path)