How to Keep Succesful Dual-Boot Setup After Kernel Updates
I already had Windows 7 (64 bit) installed in UEFI booting. Since Windows 7 does not support it, Secure Boot is disabled. Today I installed Fedora 20 (64-bit) in UEFI booting and Secure Boot disabled. I managed to get the dual boot working using the following video guide to the letter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzUKCApxfRw
Note: This guide is Windows 8 and Fedora 20 dual booting with Secure Boot disabled. It worked just the same for Windows 7 and Fedora 20. The part when he starts restoring the Windows Boot Loader is at about 6:20.
Summary:
Copy contents of Fedora EFI Partition into Windows 7 EFI Partition.
Edit /etc/fstab to point /boot/efi to correct UUID (that of the Windows 7 EFI Partition).
Make new GRUB configuration on Fedora /boot partition.
Edit GRUB configuration to point the Windows Boot Loader to Windows EFI partition.
Copy GRUB configuration to the Fedora folder in Windows 7 EFI partition.
Install GRUB on the drive.
Note: I did not delete the Fedora EFI partition afterwards.
Like I said, succesful dual boot. Then comes the problem. Updated Fedora. New kernel. Booted into new kernel. Tried booting into Windows 7. DID NOT work. I think the updates had something to with it. I do not know. I found out that the /boot/efi entry in /etc/fstab was reverted to the Fedora EFI partition.
I removed the Fedora folder in Windows 7 EFI partition (/dev/sdb1) and repeated the process. This time, the final step did not work. The GRUB installation did not start. I think the error was something like: could not find /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi/. So I tried the following:
efibootmgr -c -d /dev/sdb -p 1 -l '\EFI\fedora\grubx64.efi' -L F20
This was recommended in:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1661415#post1661415
This worked. I am back to dual booting. Now the questions are:
1) Will this fix work after updates (including kernel updates)?
IF NO:
2) what is the best way to, once and for all, keep GRUB as the default boot manager for both Fedora and Windows 7 without having to repeat the process after every update?
3) How can I delete the EFI Boot Manager entry I created (F20 Boot0002) and have Boot0001 Fedora be the default entry that will control the dual-booting?
4) How do I permanently make Fedora use the Windows 7 EFI partition as its own (while keeping the Windows 7 files in it intact?
5) Can the Fedora EFI partition (/dev/sdb4) be safely erased while maintaining the dual boot setup?
If you have read this far, thank you. Hopefully you can help me.
Attachments:
sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 238.5 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 6E8AA0BA-1735-43B7-B537-CA9C382A2048
Device Start End Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 ...