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I have a dual boot of Ubuntu (20.04) and Windows 11 on a single ssd. Everything worked fine, but suddenly (that is without any change in configurations I am aware of, any update I am aware of or anything like that), I cannot load into windows. I see the same options in the boot menu as before, but when I try to boot into windows, it just says "error: cannot load image".

What I tried so far:

sudo update-grub returns

Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'
Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg'
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-87-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-87-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-84-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.15.0-84-generic
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p1@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings
done

and fixes nothing

Os prober on the windows partition returns

dev/nvme0n1p1@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi:Windows Boot Manager:Windows:efi

and also fixes nothing.

Trying to troubleshoot the windows installation from a usb installation image also says, that the repair failed and restoring to a point before last update (about a week ago, worked in between) also didn't help.

I found this question: windows 10 image not found in grub and have very similar results

I can access all the data from the Ubuntu partition, even during the repair process from the installation flash drive everything seemed to be fine on the side of windows, but for some reason, I just cannot boot into it. Any ideas what could be wrong and how to fix it?

EDIT1: when I try to boot into windows using windows boot manager, it starts with a hardware scan and then says that there are no bootable devices. Seems like the issue is not on the side of grub/Ubuntu, but that is where I am trying to fix it from, since I don't have access elsewhere.

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  • The Windows "Fast Boot" setting leaves the disk partition in an undocumented, proprietary state that Linux isn't permitted to recognize. Boot back into Windows and disable "Fast Boot". Be prepared to have to re-disable "Fast Boot" - Windows updates have been known to turn it back on.
    – waltinator
    Commented Oct 30, 2023 at 23:55
  • @waltinator I cannot boot into windows at all, I cannot do that. Also I would think that this would get fixed by restoring windows to some previous point which I tried.
    – aky-her
    Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 7:42

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Do you happen have hibernation enabled with Windows 11? In that case, the hiberfil.sys is buggy thus throwing that image load error.

To resolve it, I did the following:

  1. Boot into Windows recovery with a bootable USB
  2. Open the command prompt
  3. Change path to the Windows installation drive. In my case, I ran C:
  4. Delete hiberfil.sys. Command: del /A "C:\hiberfil.sys"
  5. Run exit to leave command prompt then try to boot
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  • I had hibernation enabled, so this could have been the issue. I cannot verify this answer, since I don't have the computer anymore.
    – aky-her
    Commented Jul 6 at 15:44
  • Dang, 8 months too late @aky-her. Hope this helps someone else at least.
    – Looi
    Commented Jul 8 at 6:21

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