First time installing Fedora XFCE spin here and quite a newbie. It’s rock-solid! but I have one problem.
Here’s my installation
I notice there’s two bootable flashdrive. Namely, UEFI: Sandisk.. and Sandisk... But I only have one flash drive. I tried booting with the UEFI: Sandisk and do automatic install and I realize it doesn’t add my windows option on grub.
So I reinstall and choose the Sandisk.. And then, I decided to choose custom installation and set it to automatic partition. I see /boot but no /boot/efi. I reinstall again into UEFI:Sandisk.., the custom installation seems not working (I couldn’t see the clickable automatic partition at the custom pane) So I decided to go back and click the automatic installation.
I assume this happen because I install Fedora on a separate on my D drive? I have no choice as my main/C drive in which the windows located has not enough capacity for extra space.
So, my setup now was whenever I dual boot to windows I need to select UEFI Firmware Settings on grub or whenever my PC restarts I would hit f2 to open my UEFI GUI and switch my 1st bootable option to my windows drive.
I tried to read on these relevant issues. But I couldn’t found any solution or workaround. I’ve read someone would say to reinstall fedora or Windows. But for me that would be tiring because I’ve reinstall it 3 times lol. Thanks for reading, I hope someone can lend some help. Thanks!
Please post the output of lsblk -f so we can see what mode things were installed in.
If windows was installed in legacy boot (MBR) mode and fedora in UEFI mode then grub cannot boot the other OS. Similarly if reversed. Both must be installed in the same mode for grub to b e able to boot windows.
Also, if windows was installed in uefi mode and fedora was installed in uefi mode but they are on different disks and fedora was not allowed to access the drive containing windows it may not be able to find windows for booting.
When you select the UEFI disk for booting fedora and installing it will install in uefi mode.
If you only select the sandisk without the UEFI marking fedora is installed in legacy boot mode.
Your image shows the bios is uefi bios but does not tell us what mode was used for the install.
I also tried this solution from this link by modifying the 40_custom from the /etc/grub.d. And when I reboot, there’s an option of Windows 10 from the grub but it says something like it can't found the /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
It appears that windows may be installed in legacy boot mode. If that is the case then there would be no associated efi partition on that drive. I assume you are using windows 10?
Fedora is clearly installed in uefi boot mode.
We can confirm the windows installation with the output of fdisk. If sda has a dos partition table then windows is installed as legacy boot and if it has a gpt partition table then it is installed as uefi boot.
Leave things as they are and continue to use the bios boot menu to select booting either windows or fedora.
Reinstall fedora in legacy boot mode on sdb and it then should be able to use grub and boot windows.
Actually there is a 3rd option.
– Reinstall windows on sda in uefi mode so fedora could remain in uefi modeand grub could then boot both as well.
Note that windows can only boot in legacy mode when installed on a dos partitioned drive and only boots in uefi mode when installed on a gpt partitioned drive. (I think windows 11 only uses uefi mode booting)
Alright. Thanks for the suggestion. If ever I would select the option #2. What do you mean by reinstalling the fedora in legacy boot mode on sdb? Do you mean reinstalling it alongside with the windows drive? Or reinstalling it on a bootable flashdrive that doesn’t have an UEFI name on it? Because I notice there’s always an two option of this when installing an OS like linux.
If your bios is set to boot with CSM mode enabled the displayed options on the usb when booting to install should be both uefi and legacy. That selects the boot mode so it is installed the same.
The install iso is ‘hybrid’ and can be booted in either mode so that screen allows the selection of boot mode at install time.
Option 2 allows you to select the legacy mode install. It seems you selected the uefi mode when you did that install.
So If I selected the 2nd option, I would choose the bootable flashdrive without the uefi name on it right? I tried it before the the 1st option but the catch or the issue was after I finish the installation. I reboot the PC and there was no fedora OS on the boot option, only the bootable flashdrive, I selected it and I was at the media installation again but the thing was the drive allocated for fedora was already written by the fedora system. So, I think it would be kinda a loop installation because I need to redo the installation again and delete the previous fedora installation by unallocating the its drive on windows.
It was a bit strange experience. Still, I would be fine with the 1st option for now as I love my setup on fedora at this time. Thanks for the help, will check other options soon. Thanks @computersavvy!
However, when booting legacy (CSM) mode there are quirks to getting it to boot from the second drive and in getting grub configured to boot windows. It has been many years since i booted windows from fedora using MBR boot so I don’t remember the quirks involved nor how to resolve them.
You must remove the usb device after the install completes because you probably have usb selected as the first boot device. You probably also have the first drive as the next in line to boot and that would boot windows. These are all bios settings and that is part of an install with MBR booting.
