Resolving dual boot problems

1

I cannot successfully boot Windows through GRUB (BSOD), and cannot booth Linux through the Windows bootloader. My primary goal is to boot both Linux and Windows using a single bootloader, preferably GRUB, but other options are acceptable.

The setup

Desktop PC with two M2 NVME SSDs. One is supposed to be fully for Linux and one fully for Windows.

  • I have first installed Linux (Pop OS 20.04) on one drive.
  • I have later installed Windows 10, choosing another drive.
  • It wouldn't boot properly.
  • I applied various fixes and reached a point where I have a working GRUB and can use both OSes.

The problem

When I try to boot Windows from GRUB it BSODs with 0xc000000e. Windows boots normally if I choose "Windows boot manager" entry as "what to boot" in BIOS.

What fixes did I try

  • I've discovered that Windows Boot Manager originally got installed on my "Linux drive" boot partition.

  • I've used Linux "dd" terminal command to copy the boot partition from Linux drive to Windows drive, to be more sure that using various BCD repair commands won't mess up my GRUB.

  • I've then deleted the Windows folder from EFI from Linux drive boot partition.

Unfortunately the fixes broke various Windows boot repair commands, as it seems something's left of BCD on the Linux drive and Windows can't distinguish between BCDs on two drives.

Possible direction for a solution One of the things I'd like to do is destroy any remnants of BCD on my Linux drive (Can I nuke boot partition and then recreate it while still being logged into Linux, without messing aroung with recovery drives?)

For troubleshooting, I wanted to disable the Linux drive and then reinstall Windows, but I haven't found a way to disable the drives from BIOS (Motherboard is ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero).

Restrictions

I can't nuke my Linux - I need it for work. I can't physically remove any of the SSDs - the screws on my motherboard were stripped.

Additional info

Everything's "modern" - drives use GPT partitioning, and the boot partitions are EFI. SecureBoot is off in BIOS.

I tried obvious options like grub-update and Boot Repair tool

multi-boot
grub
bcd
asked on Super User Jun 5, 2020 by Misamoto • edited Jun 5, 2020 by Misamoto

0 Answers

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