Triple boot Win 8.1, Win 10 and Fedora 40?

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1

Hi, everyone. I’ve been happily dual-booting Win 8.1 (my original Toshiba laptop OS) and Fedora 30 to 32 (upgrading) before deciding to install a new Fedora from scratch. Once its partition was formatted, that goal was delayed until the laptop needed repair (changed its damaged processor), the grub still has been offering me Fedora/Windows to boot before that. Technicians returned me an apparently grub-less laptop (boots directly to Windows 8.1). My questions are:

  1. Now that I want to add Windows 10 —preserving my original 8.1—, can I just install it along the existing Windows 8.1 before installing Fedora? (because no grub shows at start).

  2. Should I just follow the same procedure as with dual boot for that goal? (first make it dual with Win10, then install Fedora 40).

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2

You need microsoft experts to help with installing 2 version of windows on one disk. Personally I solve this type of problem by running Windows in a VM.

Also if you upgrading why not consider go to Windows 11 for better support.

If you had fedora installed then getting it back is likely just a matter of going into the BIOS and making Fedora the first entry in the boot list.

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3

I doubt that is possible, but as noted a microsoft expert would be needed.

The repair shop probably was forced to do a windows recovery which likely wiped out grub.

The partitioning shows a very tiny (100MB) efi partition which probably would need to be enlarged before installing f40 (fedora creates about 600MB efi partition). I have a laptop that was originally win10 and it has about 250MB efi partition)
The partition you marked as formerly grub would be the /boot partition and the one formerly f32 would be the main root partition.

All the partitioning seems normal except the size of the efi partition and that can be easily adjusted during the installation using gparted. Delete the 2 for fedora and allow automatic partitioning in that empty space.

As already suggested I would upgrade the windows 8.1 to windows 10 then install fedora. A machine that old may or may not be able to run windows 11. It depends upon the hardware (TPM needed for win11).

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