Dual Boot with Windows 11 may be causing update Issues

Ask Fedora
1

Starting to get a better idea as to the cause of Fedora Update issues, windows may be causing the problems. What I get are bad directory attributes like d????????????, today on my home directory’s hidden files. When an IO is done on one of these directories the system crashes.
The scenario:

  1. Update using dnf5 offline
  2. Restart and login - everything looks good.
  3. Shutdown system (all power to computer and peripherals is turned off)
  4. Next day startup system
  5. Windows changes the boot order and starts up.
  6. Restart system and change boot order to get grub.
  7. May or may not boot(can’t find boot device).
  8. After many resets and reboots from command line grub the system eventually becomes stable.

Question: is there a way to disable windows from changing the boot order? When I update windows I turnoff auto updating, anyway for 5 weeks the max.

2

When more than one OS shares the same UEFI system partition, the sort of problem that you are encountering can and will occur frequently. Prevention is much more effective than trying to fix this situation.

After installing, updating and verifying a windows installation, I suggest creating a separate UEFI system partition prior to installing Fedora. Select that new partition as /boot/efi during the Fedora install. After Fedora is installed use efibootmgr to configure the boot order.,

3

Many people run dual boot and do not see this type of issue.

I would be concerned about hardware issues.

Maybe the harddisk is failing? What is the output of sudo smartctl -e /dev/YOURDISK?

Maybe your RAM? You can install memtest and run it overnight to check.

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4

I never had this issue before f41. Dual boot Windows does not allow cumulative system updates, I’ve been getting only security etc. updates. So windows hasn’t changed much. After finally getting a stable system, it runs without issues until the next update and power off. If I do an update and just reboot no problem. The results from smartctl are pretty much the same for the devices…

Model Number:                       ADATA SX6000LNP
Serial Number:                      2L192LA16AWG
Firmware Version:                   VC0S032Q
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x10ec
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x00e04c
Controller ID:                      1
NVMe Version:                       1.4
Number of Namespaces:               1
Namespace 1 Size/Capacity:          1,024,209,543,168 [1.02 TB]
Namespace 1 Formatted LBA Size:     512
Namespace 1 IEEE EUI-64:            00e04c 6ff1adeab2
Local Time is:                      Tue Apr  1 07:36:30 2025 PDT
Firmware Updates (0x02):            1 Slot
Optional Admin Commands (0x0017):   Security Format Frmw_DL Self_Test
Optional NVM Commands (0x001c):     DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat
Log Page Attributes (0x03):         S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         32 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     115 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     120 Celsius

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     8.00W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0
 1 +     4.00W       -        -    1  1  1  1        0       0
 2 +     3.00W       -        -    2  2  2  2        0       0
 3 -   0.0300W       -        -    3  3  3  3     5000   10000
 4 -   0.0050W       -        -    4  4  4  4    60000   45000

Supported LBA Sizes (NSID 0x1)
Id Fmt  Data  Metadt  Rel_Perf
 0 +     512       0         0

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        51 Celsius
Available Spare:                    180%
Available Spare Threshold:          32%
Percentage Used:                    3%
Data Units Read:                    20,158,706 [10.3 TB]
Data Units Written:                 86,330,877 [44.2 TB]
Host Read Commands:                 391,963,593
Host Write Commands:                884,916,083
Controller Busy Time:               0
Power Cycles:                       4,269
Power On Hours:                     3,635
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   86
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      3,698
Warning  Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time:    0

Error Information (NVMe Log 0x01, 8 of 8 entries)
No Errors Logged

Read Self-test Log failed: Invalid Field in Command (0x002)

zram0       252:0    0     8G  0 disk [SWAP]
nvme0n1     259:0    0 953.9G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2    0    16M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3    0 261.5G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4    0   611M  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5    0  50.4G  0 part 
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6    0     1G  0 part /boot
├─nvme0n1p7 259:7    0 639.8G  0 part /var/lib/docker/btrfs
│                                     /home
│                                     /
└─nvme0n1p8 259:8    0   508M  0 par
5

No idea what you think is not allowed. Both Fedora and Windows will apply all updates.

6

Something is wrong here. Should not be above 100%.
Maybe a firmware bug in the drive?

May indicate an issue.

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7

Ok, I didn’t do my due diligence on Windows upgrades. I was running 21H2 without TPM enabled in the bios. Thus, it was not only EOL but upgrades(cumulative) would not happen. I am now running 24H2 with the latest 2503 cumulative update. I also ran powercfg -h off to disable hibernate as it can mess with the bios. Hopefully these changes will fix my problems.
@barryascott Thanks for lighting a fire under my butt. Eventually I’ll do a complete power off to see if everything works.

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