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I've had this same Windows installation for numerous years running on a Samsung SSD. I decided to go out and buy an NVMe drive to install Debian on. Installation went well with no issues and I've been running and setting up Debian for a couple days. Today I tried going back to Windows and encountered a boot loop.

My first thought was perhaps I messed up the partion-table for Debian, selecting UEFI instead of Legacy MBR (which my Windows is running as). After confirmation they're both msdos I moved on.

  • Windows Startup repair is unable to resolve the error and fails
  • Windows System Restore failed
  • Windows Live CD Startup repair failed with an error
  • Tried disabling Fast Boot in BIOS
  • Disabled UEFI in BIOS entirely
  • Tried different menu-entries for Grub
  • Tried boot repair (both recommended and manual)
  • Tried bootrec /fixmbr
  • Tried bootrec /fixboot (access denied)
  • Tried Lilo to rebuild MBR

Despite everything I have tried, I'm still unable to get Windows to boot. Any advice?

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    Could it be that Windows wants to be on the "first" drive, which is now the nvme?
    – Gerard H. Pille
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 1:43
  • @GerardH.Pille I haven't thought of that yet, how could I test that? I've been debating if converting to UEFI might solve my dilemma
    – TehPirate
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 2:04

2 Answers 2

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Not a solution but more of a suggestion here as to what may be the cause: As you may know, Windows 10 keeps updating whether you like it or not. Windows 10 updates can cause booting issues, especially if the update involves updating your Windows Build. There is no way of knowing whether a Windows 10 update will break your dual boot setup with Linux and hence, why I suggest to disable Windows 10 updates altogether. There is a way to stop Windows 10 updates completely but you will need to do disable it via Task scheduler and some other ways.

Open Task Scheduler

  • Expand Task Scheduler Library
  • Navigate to Microsoft > Windows > Update Orchestrator
  • Delete the following tasks
  • UpdateAssistant
  • UpdateAssistantCalendarRun
  • UpdateAssistantWakeupRun
  • Close Task Scheduler
  • Uninstall any application with "Update Assistant" in the title
  • Remove the following folders if they exist
  • C:\Windows10Upgrade
  • C:\Windows10\UpdateAssistant
  • C:\Windows10\UpdateAssistantV2

Personally, I would only run a Windows and Linux Dual boot if and only if Windows OS update is disabled. The beauty of Linux is that it never updates by itself unless you issue a command to do so in the terminal, unlike Window and thus, prevents this kind of issue from happening. You may try to boot one day only to find out you can't because it causes boot issues (either it messes with the GRUB2 boot loader or something else - You can google cases of Windows update causing issues on Linux and Windows dual boot to find out more ).

On a clean install, I would update Windows 10 first to the latest version to be able to get the latest security updates and then make sure to disable Windows 10 updates completely. Afterwards, thats when I install Linux. I don't bother updating Windows 10 afterwards, only until my next reformat. I have setup my dual boot Windows 10 & Linux Laptop this way and for the past 2 years, have no problem booting. I only update my Linux distro instead.

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  • Thank you for the advice, I'll make sure to do that if/when I'm booted into Windows again
    – TehPirate
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 4:55
  • Just a side note, windows will only boot GPT disks in UEFI mode and MBR disks on Legacy BIOS mode. Debian can support both boot modes, but it helps for compatibility to have both Windows and Linux use only one boot mode. I would suggest having partition the drives as GPT so that you can boot Windows and Linux next time on UEFI should you choose to reformat your drives. I would recommend a UEFI boot mode setup instead as the default boot mode and never change it back to BIOS (My disks are formatted in GPT and Linux and Windows are both booting in UEFI mode).
    – avg9957
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 6:39
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Have a look in the bios if it allows you to reorder the disks. If not, remove the nvme to test if Windows boots again.

You mention bootrec, but not bcdedit ?

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  • I can re-order disks and manually select boot override. I did the mbr2gpt conversion as I saw some positive feedback from others the UEFI would work for multi-drive Dual-boot compared to MBR. I had to manually enable ReAgent. This still rendered a crash loop. I tried rebuilding BCD but now I'm getting BSoD on boot for improper boot configuration
    – TehPirate
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 5:40
  • Does a "bcdedit /bootdebug on" show you anything useful?
    – Gerard H. Pille
    Commented Nov 12, 2020 at 7:45

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