So, I made my bootable EndevourOS image. I installed it on my secondary SSD, while I have Win11 on my primary SSD (need it for my job).
When I installed it I booted it up and everything was ok. A bit confusing, but ok.
Wanted to get into Windows again because I needed to work on something for a design (Adobe programs), next thing I know: my computer isn’t recognizing my Windows drive…
It’s there. I can see it on the “disks” app on EndevourOS, I can mount the disk and even see my files in there. But it just won’t boot.
Read the documentation and it mentions an “os-prober”, that I needed to change GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false in the etc/default/drub file… I don’t have that file anywhere in my system…
I installed os-prober, nothing. I searched any other folder with a similar name and checked files… The only file with a mention of os-prober is grub.d that says “if GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=xtrue then random warning”, but that is a set of instructions (i think), not the actual file.
I don’t think I should have tried EOS/Arch when I’ve been learning Linux for only 2 days, can anybody help me with this? Thank you for any answers in advance.
The issue is that grub, the bootloader, doesn’t know about windows and can’t boot it. You can go into BIOS and change the boot order to boot windows without figuring this out as a stopgap.
I had to create /etc/default/grub as well on arch, so do that and rerun grub-mkconfig.
As usual, the arch wiki has a great but short guide on that: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Detecting_other_operating_systems Read the entire article to get an idea of how to work with grub, then follow the windows section exactly.
That’s the problem not even the bios is reading windows after the EOS installation. I keep changing the order of things but when I boot from the other SSD it just says “checking media” and then “failed” and it gets looped over and over again.
But I can still see the windows drives and partitions from EOS… It’s the weirdest ting that I’ve seen… Would you recommend just doing a clean install of everything in that case?
Sounds like there’s something wrong with your windows EFI partition in that case.
I don’t know how to fix that short of a reinstall. If you do reinstall, make sure to unplug (yes, that’s actually neccessary) all drives except the one you want to install windows on, otherwise the installer is almost guaranteed to fiddle around with them despite you not selecting them.
Lmao the windows installer won’t mess around with your other drives. Not even other partitions. I’ve reinstalled Windows 11 alongside Linux without issue. Other than having to reset the default efi image in the BIOS.
There are people who make backups and people who will.
It’s the same thing with this: Even if it goes nicely most of the time, it’ll eventually screw up everything and you’ll be spending at least an hour figuring out what went wrong.
It sounds like your EFI partition got fucked somehow. You could boot a live usb with windows tool like Hirens or Sergei and fix it in there. There are tools in Sergei to fix these issues, I sometimes do this at my job.
This is what I’m thinking happened. I already said this in another comment but will expand here because this comments refers specifically to the EFI partition. Here’s the weird thing, 3 days ago, I had 2 SSDs:
- 1 with 3 partitions of Windows, one EFI part., one recovery part, and the regular C: local where my files were.
- On my secondary SSD, I had Fedora installed. If I’m correct, I had a /boot, and /home(?) don’t remember if anything else.
I decided to do a clean install of Win11. When I did, I had both SSDs connected to my laptop, and when I finished the installation, this was how it was divided:
- 1st SSD: one, full 2TB C: Local disk, with no partitions.
- 2nd SSD: One EFI partition, one recovery partition, and one “empty” partition.
It was highly confusing, because I thought I had Fedora there, my immediate thought was that Win11 just straight up ravaged both my SSDs and decided “fuck it, let’s install wherever the fuck I want” and it did. HOWEVER I could still get into Fedora and use it normally. Still had all the apps and programs I installed, everything was correct. So I assumed the drive still belonged to Fedora.
When I installed EOS, I chose “Erase Disk” on the secondary SSD (the one with Fedora, the one that had this “EFI partition” that didn’t have before. I think when I erased that SSD, I erased the Windows EFI partition and couldn’t boot as a result. And that’s why the BIOS was not recognizing the OS, but at the same time I could just mount the SSD in EOS and just look t my files normally. So I think that’s what happened, but honestly I’m not even sure of how it happened.
Yeah it sounds like you messed up your boot partition. I’m not sure with EFI partitions, but when I used to mess up my legacy boots, I would recover using the windows recovery tools. Some command that would recover them. Again, I’m not sure abilout EFI partition, but maybe this is all you needed.
Anyway, good luck on your next try. I for one go with the safe route of removing drive(s) until I have the drives I need the install process to know about, you know when first installing an OS. I just don’t have the time for reinstalling things if something does go wrong.
I have a similar issue on my PC. My windows ssd doesnt even appear in the BIOS unless I keep my computer on for over 30 minutes.
I know it’s not a fix but you could try booting to endavourOS for sometime and then reboot the system into bios and maybe the windows boot entry will show up. (This works in my case, although when I shutdown the system and boot it the next day, I have to repeat all this)
Whenever I install a minimal linux distro like void, arch or gentoo all my boot entries disappear somehow (even though I have configured grub correctly). But for some reason when I install a distro with the calmares installer this doesn’t happen.
I even tried reinstalling windows multiple times on different ssd’s still no luck. My hunch is that the NVRAM in my MSI motherboard is causing the problem.
I would appreciate it, if anyone more knowledgeable on this topic can shed some light on this.
The checking media message is your bios trying to boot from some external network drive. I had that issue for the longest, and I realized that I misunderstood how the boot order actually worked.
Try swapping your boot order around to opposite how it is currently? That’s what I did and it solved my problem
I tried all orders, there were 2 Samsung SSDs (primary and secondary), and another one called “EFI” something… When I changed the order to SSD #1 it opened EndevourOS, when I changed to SSD #2 it said “checking media… failed”, and when I put the “EFI” as the first in the order, it just restarted and went again to EndevourOS. At the end, I had to do the easiest and fastest thing: start over.
I think that when I installed Win11, it took part of my Fedora partition somehow, I’m not even sure if that’s what happened and if that is what actually happened I have no clue how it happened, but right before erasing my secondary SSD to install EOS, there was a mention of a Windows “EFI” partition there, even though I could still get into Fedora. So when I erased that, I think I erased something related to Windows that I shouldn’t have erased
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To boot endeavour, did you have to change any BIOS settings? If so, change those back and ignore the reat of this.
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Backup your windows user folder if you haven’t already, put it somewhere safely away from your PC
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No seriously, back up your files to another drive asap
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You will deeply regret it if you do not back up
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Do you know what the word hubris means? Back those files up, champ
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I mean, it’s your computer, so you can make whatever terrible decisions you want. You should still back it up tho
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Make a windows installation USB or, better yet, a winpe usb if you have access to another windows computer. Boot into it, but DO NOT continue with the installation. Instead, select the option that lets you run Startup Repair.
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Run startup repair
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When that fails, because it’s apparently a script that just freezes the PC for a minute before telling you it failed, follow this guide
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If all that fails: unless you really wanna RTFM on the windows bootloader and EFI partition, or piece together the equivalent knowledge from 83 different forums and blog posts after you separate out the mountains ofmisinformation, you can always just reinstall windows and restore from the backups… you did back up, right?
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What bootloader have you choosen during install?
Which option did you select from the options in the picture (keep in mind that systemd-boot is the default in case you did not change this setting)?
I chose sysremd, I didn’t have time to fix the issue as I needed my laptop for work so I just did a clean install of everything once again. I think I will keep trying Fedora but I will read the documentation of EOS first so I can understand what I’m doing, I can’t afford to make the same mistake again lol. I think what happened is that I accidentally erased the Windows EFI partition somehow and that’s why it was not going in.
Is there an actual difference between those? Is one better than the other or it’s just the OS giving options?
Is there an actual difference between those? Is one better than the other or it’s just the OS giving options?
I am not a power user so I dont know much. From what I gather l, grub is more configurable and also easier to configure but is also more likely to break. Systemd-boot on other hand is more robust from what I read but less configurable and harder to configure. You can do things like set booting into btrfs snapshot using grub that I think you can’t with systemd-boot. Again i am no expert so parts of this might be outdated or wrong. Better to ask a more experienced user
So wait, what happens if you (obviously) turn off the computer, unplug the second ssd, then turn on the computer? Try that and report back.
Yes OP try this and report back. Might tell us if something in the windows install is broken
While I was trying to fix the issue all day, this comment is one of the things I tried, but when my laptop started, it just said “checking media… fail”, then getting reset into an endless loop. I said it in other comments but I think I erased an EFI partition that I shouldn’t have, I think Windows took part of my secondary SSD somehow.
Others are chiming in on how to debug the issue where your Linux bootloader isn’t picking up Windows, but if you really need to access Windows for your work, you can try going into the BIOS and changing the boot order to launch from your Windows EFI partition. That usually still works even after installing Linux as its a separate EFI binary.
hi, I think EOS uses systemd-boot as a default bootloader. so grub may not matter. I don’t have much experience with systemd-boot, but for now, you could just try and boot from the primary windows drive by pressing the BIOS key and changing the boot order (or using your motherboards‘ external drive boot button)this key is different for many motherboards, so you should check google for yours. As for systemd-boot, I don’t have much experience so I’d either google (specifying the two drives) or ask gpt. Good luck!
After reading all these comments I just decided to format all my drives and start over. I made the mistake of installing EndevourOS at 12am when the next day I had to use Windows for my job! I did enter BIOS and changed the order but not even my BIOS recognized the OS, it just said “checking media… fail” and it fell into a permanent loop. What I said in another comment was that I thought this had happened:
It’s weird, but I had Fedora installed on my secondary SSD. Apparently when I did a clean Windows install, it installed in the primary SSD but took a part of Fedora on the secondary SSD as a Windows EFI partition. Then, when I installed EOS I selected “erase the disk” for the secondary SSD. I think it erased that EFI partition and I couldn’t go back to windows, but since the primary SSD still had my files I could still see them. To be honest, something like that never happened before so I’m not even sure of what I’m saying.
I’m not even sure if that’s what happened, as I’m still not an expert in these things, but when I erased the secondary SSD there was a “EFI partition” I had not seen before.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/systemd-boot#Boot_from_another_disk
It seems that systemd-boot does not autodetect the windows boot option if the files associated with windows boot are on another drive.
Edit : Though from your other comment reply I think there something broken in your windows install. You can try to fix it using a windows installation media or just reinstall windows as the other poster told.
Edit 2 : A guide specifically for EndeavourOS https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/tutorial-add-a-systemd-boot-loader-menu-entry-for-a-windows-installation-using-a-separate-esp-partition/37431
This is what I think happened that I wrote on another comment:
It’s weird, but I had Fedora installed on my secondary SSD. Apparently when I did a clean Windows install, it installed in the primary SSD but took a part of Fedora on the secondary SSD as a Windows EFI partition. Then, when I installed EOS I selected “erase the disk” for the secondary SSD. I think it erased that EFI partition and I couldn’t go back to windows, but since the primary SSD still had my files I could still see them. To be honest, something like that never happened before so I’m not even sure of what I’m saying.
Tbh I’m not even sure if that’s what happened, I just didn’t find an easy solution apart from starting over.
Oof. Sounds really stressful. I hope you figure this out. Try installing refind and running “refind-install”. It searches your system for bootable disks and gives you a big menu to choose from.
At the end I just erased all my disks and started all over again :( figured it was the easiest and quickest way to deal with it because I urgently needed W11 for my job, I’ll just be more ready for next time and read more about the OS before making a move so sudden like that
Shit, it’d take me days if not weeks to get my windows install set back to how I have it. Well, I’m guessing you have a better system than I for reseting your OS from scratch.
This is a feature, not a bug. You have been freed from Windows!
I wish, I still need to use Adobe products for my job, not even sure if I can install Adobe products in Linux yet, I’m still learning haha!
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Consider boosting up from a live Linux(for example Ubuntu) and using boot-repair. I have had similar problems and managed to at least get the Windows boot going again.
Also are you using UEFI or MBR?
I was using UEFI I think? I used Rufus to make the bootable flash drive and it just gave me either MBR or GPT, when I selected GPT it showed me the UEFI option to the right (iirc). I spent all day seeing these comments and at the end of the day I had to delete everything in my hard drives and start over again…
It’s weird, but I had Fedora installed on my secondary SSD. Apparently when I did a clean Windows install, it installed in the primary SSD but took a part of Fedora on the secondary SSD as a Windows EFI partition. Then, when I installed EOS I selected “erase the disk” for the secondary SSD. I think it erased that EFI partition and I couldn’t go back to windows, but since the primary SSD still had my files I could still see them. To be honest, something like that never happened before so I’m not even sure of what I’m saying.
USE. SYSTEMD-BOOT. ALREADY.
