Can not boot into Fedora 29 after installing Windows, tried some steps w/o luck

asked 2019-02-26 12:04:09 -0500

HXH
23 ●1 ●5 ●3

Hi Folks.

I have read many posts on this topic, though it is usually either Windows installed first or on a < Fedora 20 system and find myself unable to rectify the situation.

I installed Windows 10 64bit UEFI on my HP Z620 where I had a Fedora 29 Workstation working perfectly.

Fedora is installed to the 1st internal ssd, sda and has several partitions for the system (efi, boot, system, home, var, swap)

Then there is a second ssd for files, sdb

I added a third ssd drive and installed Windows 10 64 bit.

Obviously Fedora no longer boots, so I researched terms such as restorring and reinstalling Grub2... here is a brief rundown of what I tried to do.... I imagine I am just not finishing a step....

Started to Fedora 29 Workstation Live USB Media.
Open a terminal
su, mkdir /mnt/sysimage
mount sda4 to /mnt/sysimage (this is my root partition), /dev/sda2 (boot) to /mnt/sysimage/boot, /dev/sda1 (efi) to /mnt/sysimage/boot/efi
mounted the appropriate virtual file systems under /mnt/sysimage (/proc, /sys, /dev)
chrooted to the /mnt/sysimage dir
tried reinstalling grub2, dnf reinstall grub2-efi grub2-efi-modules shim
ran # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

after it reports it as done, rebooting only shows the Windows boot up.

Can someone please throw me a clue where I am falling short?

Thanks.

edit retag flag offensive close merge delete

add a comment

1

answered 2019-02-26 14:19:32 -0500

Kostya Vasilyev
1 ●8 ●2

First you should be able to boot into "your" Fedora install by using a special BIOS key (often F8).

There I'd check if Grub actually did install a UEFI entry into BIOS (UEFI firmware):

$ sudo efibootmgr -v

Look for something like

Boot0002* Fedora HD(1,GPT,c6ba7c74-d86f-43a1-aa2d-77b219ea65e0,0x800,0x200000)/File(\EFI\FEDORA\SHIM.EFI)..BO

There should be a "BootOrder" output line nearby and I suppose the Windows BootXXXX entry is listed there as the first one.

Second, enter BIOS and select Grub's UEFI entry as the default - or rather (as BIOS's work) move it up above the Windows entry. Grub should be able to chain to Windows (even in UEFI mode).

Finally, the best solution I've found for my system is to use a separate "boot manager" called rEFInd:

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

Using it is really simple:

Download
Install
On every boot, rEFInd will actually search your hard drives for UEFI-bootable "stuff" (takes just a second or so) and show a nice graphical screen where you can select between OSs such as Windows and Linux (or several).

edit flag offensive delete link

add a comment

0

answered 2019-03-01 01:25:55 -0500

HXH
23 ●1 ●5 ●3

Okay. I was able to figure out my mistake.

I must have reformatted the /boot and /boot/efi partitions during the Fedora install. efibootmgr was coming up empty, as well as grub2mkconfig - all clues pointed to no boot info for the Win installation.

To fix it, I ended up reinstalling both systems again, bummer since I had Fedora set up perfectly, but it's really only losing a few hours since I keep all files on a separate drive.

Before reinstalling I tried to copy Window's efi boot files from the Win hd to /boot/efi/EFI/Windows, but I couldn't get it to work as well as trying to recover the boot files through a Win install USB. Nothing worked so I just wanted to do it right and so I installed Windows then Fedora and Grub picked up on Windows without my intervention.

Thanks for all the info! It is a good thing to know and have a reference to in the future.

edit flag offensive delete link

add a comment

0

answered 2019-02-26 15:37:46 -0500

ozeszty

1923 ●57 ●37

Hi, look at UEFI/BIOS boot settings and make sure Fedora drive is the primary boot device or Fedora/GRUB is the primary boot entry (it varies depending on motherboard and it's setup). Since you've already rebuilt GRUB config after windows installation, it should allow you to boot both Fedora and Windows.

edit flag offensive delete link

add a comment

Can not boot into Fedora 29 after installing Windows, tried some steps w/o luck

3 Answers

Question Tools

Stats

Related questions

Can not boot into Fedora 29 after installing Windows, tried some steps w/o luck edit

3 Answers

Question Tools

Stats

Related questions

Can not boot into Fedora 29 after installing Windows, tried some steps w/o luck