Win 11/Linux Mint 22 Dual Boot - Lost ability to boot to Win 11

I have Windows 11 and Linux Mint 22 installed on the same disk in my Mini Tower. Dual Boot has been working fine until yesterday when as I tried to boot to Windows, I received a message that it was trying to repair the system (I am unable to remember the exact wording). The screen then went black with a small arrow and a small blue circle that did not scroll. It never left that state. Since then, although I am still able to boot into Linux, I cannot boot into Windows, receiving the same screen state as previously described. As I am still able to use Linux OK, it appears to me that my HDD is not corrupted but instead it may be a corruption within the EFI or what we called the boot string or boot strap in the old days. It is not a matter of doing a system restore as I am not even able to boot into Windows at all. I would appreciate any advice that may be given. I have checked the EUFI Bios which appears OK. I was wondering if I make a Win Bootable USB whether I might be able to tinker with the C: Drive a bit and sort things out. Then of course, how do I make one when operating in Linux. PP

The log file created by Startup Repair can help to find out the cause of the boot problem. In this video, i will explain how to use the Startup Repair tool to troubleshoot boot problems in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Even easier method

Boot any Windows install media
choose repair system
choose other options -->command mode
then diskpart
select the efi partiton and re-install the Windows boot manager via bcdboot. Enough examples all over this forum to give more details on how to do it.

Cheers
jimbo

To both FreeBooter and Jimbo45 - Thank you for your replies. It is greatly appreciated. I'll try them both. To be honest, I used to write code myself but I am in my 70s now and once everything went 64 bit, I found that it was beyond me. Thanks heaps. PP

@Peter Purss you see i'm not sure what is wrong with Windows 11 to suggests you a repair method if you see error message please post it here for us to see, or you know why Windows 11 not booting let me know.

@FreeBooter - Thank you for your response mate. Perhaps I could have been clearer. I am NOT able to boot into Windows. It just freezes whilst trying to do so. I AM able to boot into Linux Mint and am trying to find ways in which I might, again, get access to Windows 11. @jimbo45 suggested that I install a new Windows boot manager via bcdboot but If I was able to execute a bcdboot command, then I would need to be at a command prompt at least. I am not able to even get to that stage. He also said that it is explained how to do so on many posts within the Forum. When I did a search, I was not able to locate the steps I'd need to take. If you are able to assist in any way, then I would be most appreciative. PP

Find a flash drive that you can format (> or = 8 GB)

Create a bootable Media Creation Tool (MCT) (Windows 11 iso):




Boot to the flash drive:



Troubleshoot > command prompt (Administrator X:\windows\system32\cmd.exe)

Type:

notepad
notepad
bcdedit
bcdedit | find "osdevice"

save results to notepad > post a link into this thread

notepad
diskpart
lis dis
lis vol
sel dis 0
det dis
lis par
sel par 1
det par
sel par 2
det par
sel par 3
det par
sel par 4
det par
sel par 5
det par
sel par 6
det par
sel par 7
det par


If windows is not on disk 0 then post results for:

diskpart
lis dis
lis vol
sel dis 0
det dis
lis par
sel dis 1
det dis
lis par
sel dis 2
det dis
lis par

save results to notepad > post a link into this thread

Peter Purss said:

@FreeBooter - Thank you for your response mate. Perhaps I could have been clearer. I am NOT able to boot into Windows. It just freezes whilst trying to do so. I AM able to boot into Linux Mint and am trying to find ways in which I might, again, get access to Windows 11. @jimbo45 suggested that I install a new Windows boot manager via bcdboot but If I was able to execute a bcdboot command, then I would need to be at a command prompt at least. I am not able to even get to that stage. He also said that it is explained how to do so on many posts within the Forum. When I did a search, I was not able to locate the steps I'd need to take. If you are able to assist in any way, then I would be most appreciative. PP

Click to expand...

Just make a Hirens boot usb and once booted into Hirens, repair bcd with the gui tools there

Please boot your computer with Windows Setup Media and from Windows Recovery Environment start the Command Prompt.

Please type the below command into Command Prompt and press the Enter key.

The following command scans integrity of all protected Windows system files and repairs files with problems when possible.





Please replace partition letter C: with Windows installed partition letter. When the computer boots into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment, the drive letter assign to Windows partition may not be C: drive letter because Windows 7, 8 , 8.1 and 10 creates a separate system partition when it's installed from scratch. The system partition contains boot files WinRE assigns the system partition the C: drive letter and the Windows installed partition will be assigned any other drive letter, usually D: drive letter is assign to Windows installed partition. The Bcdedit | find "osdevice" command can be used to find out the drive letter of the Windows installed partition, the output of the Bcdedit command is similar to this osdevice partition=D:. The drive letter after partition= is the drive letter of the Windows partition.




Please boot your computer with Windows Setup Media and from Windows Recovery Environment start the Command Prompt.

Please type the below command into Command Prompt and press the Enter key.

Following command will fix errors on the disk and locates bad sectors and recovers readable information.





Please replace partition letter C: with Windows installed partition letter. When the computer boots into Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) environment, the drive letter assign to Windows partition may not be C: drive letter because Windows 7, 8 , 8.1, 10 and Windows11 creates a separate system partition when it's installed from scratch. The system partition contains boot files WinRE assigns the system partition the C: drive letter and the Windows installed partition will be assigned any other drive letter, usually D: drive letter is assigned to Windows installed partition. The Bcdedit | find "osdevice" command can be used to find out the drive letter of the Windows installed partition, the output of the Bcdedit command is similar to this osdevice partition=D:. The drive letter after partition= is the drive letter of the Windows partition.



To troubleshoot Windows 10 or Windows 11 boot problem, just follow the instructions in this guide, and hopefully you will fix the not booting problem in no time.

in Linux Mint please check your etc/default/grub.conf file to ensure windows boot entry is there.
then in a terminal run
sudo update grub

then try a reboot to see if Windows boots
if it doesn’t you may to reconfigure the Linux boot loader.

best of luck, Steve ..

Peter Purss said:

@FreeBooter - Thank you for your response mate. Perhaps I could have been clearer. I am NOT able to boot into Windows. It just freezes whilst trying to do so. I AM able to boot into Linux Mint and am trying to find ways in which I might, again, get access to Windows 11. @jimbo45 suggested that I install a new Windows boot manager via bcdboot but If I was able to execute a bcdboot command, then I would need to be at a command prompt at least. I am not able to even get to that stage. He also said that it is explained how to do so on many posts within the Forum. When I did a search, I was not able to locate the steps I'd need to take. If you are able to assist in any way, then I would be most appreciative. PP

Click to expand...

Hi there
Just boot Any windows install mediam and choose repair system -->choose options -->command prompt

At boot you'll get couple of questions on choose keyboard etc
then you should see this screen




Now you will get another keyboard selection screen then you should see this



Finally hit troubleshoot which then shows next screen which gives you the command prompt option which is effectively winpe.




Now at Command prompt you should see the familiar Windows terminal screen and it's already in elevated mode






From here it's a doddle

diskpart to select the windows disk - and assign it a volume id if it doesn't have one already say C:
the small EFI partition is usually 100M size and hidden so simply select that (list vol) and assign it say a letter S

exit diskpart

change to the windows directory

cd c:\windows\system32

c:

now just install the bootloader bcdboot c:\windows /s:S /f UEFI
exit and now you can reboot windows.

Cheers
jimno

XxXxX said:

in Linux Mint please check your etc/default/grub.conf file to ensure windows boot entry is there.
then in a terminal run
sudo update grub

then try a reboot to see if Windows boots
if it doesn’t you may to reconfigure the Linux boot loader.

best of luck, Steve ..

Click to expand...

I think OP cannot boot Windows 11 not because of GRUB but because Windows 11 corrupted, and again we are not sure so you could be correct i leave a video for fixing Ubuntu boot problem with using boot-repair tool should also work for Linux Mint.

In this guide, you will learn how to fix Ubuntu boot problem.

FreeBooter said:

I think OP cannot boot Windows 11 not because of GRUB but because Windows 11 corrupted, and again we are not sure so you could be correct i leave a video for fixing Ubuntu boot problem with using boot-repair tool should also work for Linux Mint.

In this guide, you will learn how to fix Ubuntu boot problem.

Click to expand...

normally on duel boot with Linux the Linux boot manager takes over the boot process as the Windows boot manager if re-installed may very well wipe the Linux boot manager out. but with Linux that is easily repairable from within Linux Mint tools using the 'repair boot manager' tool

best of luck, Steve ..

FreeBooter said:

I think OP cannot boot Windows 11 not because of GRUB but because Windows 11 corrupted, and again we are not sure so you could be correct i leave a video for fixing Ubuntu boot problem with using boot-repair tool should also work for Linux Mint.

In this guide, you will learn how to fix Ubuntu boot problem.

Click to expand...

You misread the post -- boot a Windows install disk and simply re-install the bootloader. If Windows won't boot at all it's the bootloader that's the problem before it even starts loading the OS.

Linux installs might corrupt a Windows bootloader (these days it usually doesn't -- especially if you use systemctl as the main boot rather than grub -- the OSprober will even add a Windows boot selection at boot time when booting the Linux system) but in years and years of running Linux I can't say I've ever experienced a hosed up Windows partition when Windows is installed on a UEFI / GPT disk although it has hosed up the Windows boot in the past.

For old Windows systems (pre W11) on non UEFI systems just restore the MBR (fixmbr) should recover windows boot.

Cheers
jimbo