Win 11 drive booting only to GRUB 2.06

Hi there, hopefully someone can help with this.
The short version is that I've put my Win 11 boot drive in a new PC and its now only booting to GRUB 2.06, in the BIOS there is no option to select Windows, how to get back to my Win11 install?

The longer version with more detail is that initially I installed Linux Mint, so that from there I could install Win11 from a disk drive. I did a normal install, overwriting the linux install but seems its left the Grub loader. I've been using that drive in my system for about 2 years, no problems. (I didnt set it up as a dual boot system, I just used the Mint install to install Win11.

The system is an Intel Nuc8i3, and recently I saw an Intel Nuc8i5 for sale for a good price so thought I could swap the boot drive from one system to the other, but its not booting/detecting the Win11 install - as above how can i get back to my Win11 install?

I have looked online for help but everything I read assumes I have access to the desktop on that drive (in either Windows or Linux)...I cant access the desktop.

I do have a separate Linux laptop and a separate Win10 PC if that helps regarding accessing the drive via file explorer/disk manager etc to delete the grub file if that is even possible?? Or maybe there is a command I can use in the Grub menu to access the Windows install??

If I connect the boot drive via usb c to my Win10 PC its not showing up in explorer, but its there in Disk management -

3 partitions [100mb EFI system partition] [930.37gb NTFS basic data partition] [1.02gb recovery partition]

If you need more info let me know.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Hal

I forget the command but if you boot via grub to linux and execute the grub command (in a linux terminal) and then reboot it will find it. it should then be okay.

you may only need

probably need this only if make change to grub config... like for changing the boot order...

Hi there, thanks a lot for your reply - unfortunately I cant boot to Linux to access the terminal as far as I know. Its just a drive with Windows 11 installed but it still has the Grub loader and that is what the Bios is detecting. Can I boot to Windows from Grub 2.06 menu?

So no actual linux partition? but it has grub? and it has windows? does grub show a menu and is windows on it?

Have you tried booting to BIOS and changing boot order to show Win Mgr or whatever it is to first?, save and reboot?

Hi, unfortunately no Linux partition - I overwrite the Linux with Win11 about 2yrs ago but seems the grub remains. I cant see a menu in Grub, it just says - GNU GRUB version 2.06 Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported, and has the command line grub> for entering commands but seems very basic.
Yes it boots to BIOS fine but no option to select Win11, no mention anywhere of Windows. Shows only Linux (I say linux but its just detecting the grub, there is no Linux OS installed) or no boot drive available.
Quite annoying as I know Win11 is on there...

put the win11 iso stick in and boot to it and try to do a reset/restart/repair

If you don't get Windows booting you can try this. You will need a recent system image of the drive. I used Macrium but any imaging program should work. I did a clean install of Windows. Once I knew Windows was booting Ok, I used my latest Macrium image to restore just the old Windows partition overtop the new Windows partition.

Ok great thanks krism, I'll try what you suggest tomorrow morning, I can do the same via Win11 ISO disc image in a DVD drive??

Thanks Winuser, I dont have a disc image, and cant boot to desktop - I'm not sure Macrium will work in this situation but Im not familiar with the software

I can access this, not sure how to boot to Windows from here? (images attached)

If that's your boot options try selecting Microsoft. If that doesn't work try selecting Boot.

Thinking about it some more, can you put the drive back into the old computer and boot Windows so that you can make an image?

When I ran into the problem of not being able to boot into Windows wit as because the boot partition was put on the drive with the other Windows install. Macrium does have the option to fix the boot partition. I couldn't get it to work. I think it was because I didn't know the correct way to do it. Maybe someone that knows how will explain to you on how to do it.

You can fix boot problems with Macrium. Here are step instruction.


I believe you have to boot with a Macrium Rescue USB Flash drive, which you can create on another computer with Macrium installed.

If you have a Macrium Image saved on another drive, you can restore that.

You obviously didn't do a Clean Install of Windows 11, where you would boot off of the Windows Installer USB, Choose your Language. Then Install Now, then Custom Install.
In Where Would you like to install Windows? Delete ALL partitions until the drive is all Unallocated Space. removing all Linux properties. Then press Next.
Windows will create Partitions and format them NTFS.

The easiest thing to do is to start over again.
Save any files you want to keep to another drive and start over doing a Clean Install following the above suggestions.

Thanks all for the replies (krism, Winuser & Spunk), I seem to have found a solution now! I typed this into the Grub 2.06 command line - see link below for full post. The Win11 OS booted straight away.

insmod part_gpt
insmod chain
set root=(hd0,gpt1)
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
boot
How to start a windows partition from the Grub command line

Great!