Tips for replacing existing Linux install with Fedora on a Windows dual boot system?

Ask Fedora
1

My disk layout currently looks like this:

DiskNumber PartitionNumber Type             Size DriveLetter
---------- --------------- ----             ---- -----------
         0               1 Reserved        16 MB
         0               2 Basic       930.72 GB           C
         0               3 Recovery       797 MB

         1               1 System         2.0 GB       (EFI)
         1               2 Unknown     474.94 GB

Disk 0 contains Windows 11 while Disk 1 contains an Arch Linux based OS. Currently my laptop first boots into Limine on the EFI partition and then can boot into either Windows or Linux. The Windows partition is unencrypted. I want to replace the Linux installation with Fedora.

I have reinstalled the Linux portion a handful of times in the past. But in the process I somehow mess up the boot related stuff and I can’t boot into Windows anymore without reinstalling.

I am looking to avoid this. Any tips for this?

Thanks.

2

Please show us the output of sudo fdisk -l and lsblk -f so we can see all the details about the drives and file systems (include the command used with the posted results). It is strange that windows would not have an efi partition on its home drive.

3

I am gonna have to paste pictures instead of text because the Linux OS is unwell. Sorry about that in advance.

This is the disk layout:

PXL202605261622167152
PXL2026052616221671522511Ă—2336 978 KB

The Windows boot related stuff seems to live in /dev/nvme1n1p1. This is the screenshot of the efibootmgr output. Pay attention to entry 0004.

PXL202605261633066452
PXL2026052616330664523631Ă—517 350 KB

4

Please help. :cry:

5

I ended up having to ask an LLM for help. I backed up the boot partition on a USB drive. Then let the Fedora installer wipe the whole Linux drive. Once Fedora was installed, I copied the Microsoft folder from the backup into /boot/efi/EFI. Then I ran sudo grub2-mkconfig | sudo tee /boot/grub2/grub.cfg. Verify that “Microsoft” is present in the grub configuration file.

After this Windows appears in the GRUB selection screen. Somehow the Windows entry also appeared in the EFI menu without me doing anything. Not sure if it was GRUB or the BIOS that did that. But now dual booting works.