Hello! So, when installing Fedora KDE, I removed both my SSD with Windows 11 and my 10tb HD, leaving only the disk where I wanted it to be installed. After seeing that the installation was successful, I put the other disks on and tried to boot windows. However, the windows disk’s name is “WDC WDS480G2G0C-00AJM0” and when i select it to boot, the message “Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected boot device and press a key” appears. Also, when I try to open the disks on the Fedora file manager, it asks for a password and I can’t access them.
Found the solution:
I first downloaded and booted windows 11 on a pendrive and went to the repair option, then to the command prompt. I had to type in two recovery keys, because I have two encrypted disks (the third disk was formatted when I installed Fedora so it lost the encryption), that’s my guess. Then, I just followed a simple guide with the right commands to repair the bootloader and it started working again. Now, the windows’ boot option appears to be on my Samsung SSD when I look into BIOS, but I think that’s no problem.
By installing fedora in that way, with the windows drive disconnected, grub was not able to see the windows drive and did not add the windows boot loader to the menu.
When dual booting with windows it is simpler to just leave the windows drives connected and perform the installation while selecting only the desired disk for the installation.
Try running sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg then reboot to see if it now appears in the grub menu for booting.
The reason you cannot open the disks in nautilus is that they are using bitlocker and you would need the bitlocker key to unlock the device.
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 32767 30720 15M Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda2 32768 19532869631 19532836864 9.1T Microsoft basic data
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 34815 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p2 34816 936105983 936071168 446.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p3 936105984 937697279 1591296 777M Windows recovery environment
That was not a very good idea (although very understandable), as the removed disk had primary UEFI partition with bootloaders. But bootloader entries have relative paths, and when you added extra disk, they could have changed, so UEFI cannot find the specified bootloader now. In addition to that, your disk is encrypted with Bitlocker.
The easiest thing is probable booting into the UEFI bios and making sure your windows disk (the one with the original UEFI partition which is normally around 100MB, probably nvme0n1p1) is Number 1 in disk boot selection chain, then it should boot.
However in this case you will have to add an extra entry with bcdedit for linux.
Alternatively, you could edit uefi boot menu from linux, editing windows entry so it has the right path (efibootmgr or GUI apps like bootice or grub-customizer).
If this sounds too complicated, the easiest thing would be leaving 2 original disks as they were initially, making sure Windows boots again, then re-format the fedora disk completely, plug it in, and reinstall fedora (in this case the setup will be able to make correct boot menu entries considering your configuration).
So I should keep all three disks in and simply reinstall Fedora on the same disk I installed it before? This process would fix the windows disk’s boot?
the fedora disk probably has its own uefi partition now (and there should only be one), that’s why in this situation i re-format the disk. I would have done the following:
take the fedora disk out;
make sure Windows boots fine (most important - as your drives are encrypted)
re-format (or delete all the partitions) from fedora disk from under windows, connecting it via usb if you have usb enclosure
connect clean disk (if windows won’t boot, check disk boot order in UEFI) and then install fedora.
this seems the easiest and safest way, but maybe others will give better advice.
Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do what you recommended before and I only want to get to boot windows at this point. But how am I going to make sure Windows boots fine after removing the fedora disk if it doesn’t boot now?
If you take the Fedora disk out, the original disks should go back to their original names and UEFI should be able to find windows bootloader and start it. (Windows will boot again)
This is surprising - there is no EFI partition on the Windows drive (the partition isn’t shown as “EFI System”, and 16MB is much too small for Windows EFI).
So there’s nothing to initiate the boot into Windows.
Before you installed Fedora, how was this set up? Did you have only your NVMe and the 10 TB drive? Or was your Samsung SSD (now containing Fedora) in use as part of your install?
I had removed both the SSD with windows and the 9TB drive. Only the Samsung SSD was left when I formatted it and installed Fedora. Then, after testing it, I put the other drives back on and I couldn’t boot Windows anymore.
However, I just fixed it. Here’s the solution:
I first downloaded and booted windows 11 on a pendrive and went to the repair option, then to the command prompt. I had to type in two recovery keys, because I have two encrypted disks (the third disk was formatted when I installed Fedora so it lost the encryption), that’s my guess. Then, I just followed a simple guide with the right commands to repair the bootloader and it started working again. Now, the windows’ boot option appears to be on my Samsung SSD when I look into BIOS, but I think that’s no problem.
And you were using that Samsung SSD on your Windows-only setup before you installed Fedora?
I think your Windows EFI partition would have been on that Samsung SSD previously. So the Fedora install wiped it, and your repair procedure recreated it.
Yes, but Windows wasn’t installed on the Samsung SSD though, which is strange. But that’s probably it. I ran cd /d K:\efi\microsoft\boot\ on the command prompt and it couldn’t find the path.
