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I have a fairly new PC (lenovo pre-assembled) and with the following layout:

  • nvme disk (500Gb GPT original from lenovo) running with windows 11 installed
  • samsung 860 evo ssd (1Tb GPT added by me) with windows 10 installed
  • samsung 870 evo ssd (500Gb GPT added by me) with linux installed

Both windows are freshly installed I have the linux ssd as boot option and from GRUB I choose which OS to load.

When i installed the systems i only had a single drive connected to the PC because when i tried to install Windows 10 with the other drives present, the installation procedure managed to install the UEFI partition and the recovery one on another disk! (I am absolutely sure that i did choose the correct disk during installation ... and the windows partition was installed on the correct disk)

Note: i did disable fast startup on both windows 10 and 11

After a couple of months of everything mostly fine (i.e. some random unexpected disk check when either windows was starting) last week something strange happened. I did update (tried to) windows 11 and the update failed so it automatically rolled back. From that point windows 10 was not able to start anymore... it went in a loop of "automatic repair".

All the data in the windows 10 disk was safe and accessible from both linux and win11.

I tried various guides (ranging from restore windows from a previous restore point, trying to use WindowsRE to let it repair the boot sequence, using bcdboot to repair the UEFI boot partition) to stop the loop but nothing managed to solve my issue... at the end of the day I decided to re-install from scratch (unmounting the other drives first).

Now my question is... is it possible that the windows 11 update somehow corrupted the boot partition of windows 10? can it happen again? is there something to prevent it?

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  • No, it's not possible for one Windows installation to corrupt another Windows installation (unless ACLs of one are manually changed while booted to the other), as this isn't how Windows functions: Win10 runs from its %SystemDrive% and Win11 from its, of which are not the same partition (applications are the same). Likely reason for the boot issue is a corrupted BCD Store; normally, boot WinPE/WinRE's command line and BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD - however when dual-booting Linux, this cannot be used since it'll overwrite GRUB - instead, a Linux program must be used in lieu of
    – JW0914
    Commented May 2, 2022 at 12:55

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If the computer is CPU Generation 8 or 9 and all other requirements, Windows 11 should work flawlessly. I have a Lenovo 9th generation (Jan 1 this year) and Windows 11 is running fine.

Failure to succeed the "Startup Repair" usually means reinstalling Windows. It is likely the dual boot implementation that caused issues here. It is not likely that Windows 11 will corrupt a Windows 10 install if done correctly

Back up your data (you said you could see it) and reinstall Windows.

is it possible that the windows 11 update somehow corrupted the boot partition of windows 10? can it happen again? is there something to prevent it?

Properly done, the Windows 11 upgrade, or a reinstall of existing Windows 11, is very safe.

Prevent the Dual Boot issues? People waste many hours with dual boot issues. I just use Virtual Machines to solve these issues and that works flawlessly. I can move existing VMs to new computers. This saves MANY hours of work.

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  • I do not think upgrading from Windows 10 to 11 was involved in this question. The PC came with Windows 11 preinstalled, OP installed Windows 10 on another drive.
    – Daniel B
    Commented May 2, 2022 at 12:26
  • Good point and I clarified my answer.
    – anon
    Commented May 2, 2022 at 12:28
  • It's not possible for one Windows installation to corrupt another Windows installation (unless ACLs of one are manually changed while booted to the other), as this isn't how Windows functions: Win10 runs from its %SystemDrive% and Win11 from its, of which are not the same partition (applications are the same). Likely reason for the OP's boot issue is a corrupted BCD Store; normally, boot WinPE/WinRE's command line and BootRec /FixMBR && BootRec /RebuildBCD, however when dual-booting Linux, this cannot be used since it'll overwrite GRUB - instead, a Linux program must be used in lieu of
    – JW0914
    Commented May 2, 2022 at 12:57

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