this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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    Windows eats partitions (lemmy.world)
    submitted 1 year ago by drbi@lemmy.world to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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    [–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 109 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

    What's actually happening here is Windows is setting its bootloader first in your EFI when it gets updated. Linux isn't gone, you just have to press the "boot another drive" button and boot to it, or go into your EFI setup and switch the bootloader back to the Linux one.

    Linuxes do the same thing when updating their bootloader.

    Note for the Ackshually crowd: If you're still booting MBR (which comes with the partition eating risk on dual boots) you have a system that is older than Windows 8 - 11+ years old, so eating the MBR is something you'll have to deal with unconventionally, as all modern systems, OS, and hardware expect you to be using EFI.

    [–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

    Grub does not do the same thing unless something has gone wrong. It detects windows and offers you the choice on boot as to which OS to start.

    [–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Grub is still the first bootloader in that case. You would not notice if it was putting itself first after an update unless you have Windows booting first.

    You might notice if you are booting between multiple linuxes, all with their own version of grub.

    [–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    Again, unless something has gone wrong, the grub config should auto-detect the other Linux distros installed and add them to the boot menu. It should look like this:

    EDIT: Also, what can happen is that the grub timeout (the time that menu is on screen) is set to 0 seconds. You can get the grub menu to stay up by holding left shift during boot if that's the case.

    [–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

    Having dual booted Fedora and Ubuntu before, I will point out that they will both install Grub in the EFI under separate folders and do battle for first boot dominance every time there's a kernel update.

    [–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 1 year ago

    What OP was saying is that updating Linux may also change your bootloader to the one that Linux expects you to be using. It's better since it will detect windows and give you the option of booting into it, but it'll still replace what's being used (according to OP).

    [–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

    Not the case. What's happening here is Windows is removing the ext4 partition completely, expanding the ntfs partition and writing to all of it.

    Windows update did that to my <1 year old laptop. I figured it had just wiped out grub, but when it was booted from a live-usb there was no ext4 partition there at all. This has been reported many times.

    Microsoft should be sued for this shit. Legal protection from destroying people's data that is not part of Windows or in a Windows partition, whether deliberately or by negligence, is not something that can be legitimately covered by a license agreement.

    [–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago

    Second that. I can't think of a way that that is not deliberate. The "cover" would be that it is ensuring that the full device is used so that the end user doesn't have to worry about it. In reality, there's no legitimate reason for an update to touch the partition table. Way to easy to brick the system.

    [–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    In my experience (W11 + Fedora on UEFI Thinkpad), I've seen it actually get rid of the Fedora entry from the UEFI boot list. Reinstalling GRUB from chroot didn't fix it, so I used EasyUEFI and manually added the Fedora EFI file to the boot list and that worked.

    So it wasn't simply changing the boot order, it actually nuked Fedora from the UEFI boot list.

    [–] ziggurat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

    There are multiple ways it can Ops mess up Linux boot loaders, this is one of several

    I have no patience for this shit, the last 5 years, if a game doesn't work in Linux, I don't need to play it

    [–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago

    It sometimes destroys the Linux boot sector too. But it's simple enough to chroot with a live usb and repair it. I don't even have both OS as an option. Mine boots straight into Linux unless I interrupt it and use the boot another drive option. Linux and Windows have their own separate boot sectors, but Windows will fubar the Linux sector randomly.