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Here is my situation:

I inherited a machine that has already fully used the 4 Primary partitions:

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *          2048    1026047    1024000   500M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2          1026048  169336831  168310784  80.3G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3        169336832 1951377407 1782040576 849.7G  f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb4       1951377408 1952444415    1067008   521M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sdb5        169338880  333178879  163840000  78.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

I don't want to destroy the existing Windows on the PC, but I want to triple booting windows 11, Ubuntu and Debian at the same time.

I carefully examined the first two partitions, and concluded that,

  • The first partition is a Win10 partition after the anniversary update for Windows 10 and had the disk cleaned.
  • The second partition is the Win11 partition that the machine boots from

I.e., the only usage of the first Win10 partition is to boot the second Win11 partition.

So I set the bootable flag to the second Win11 partition instead. But now my PC is not bootable. Windows complains that the hardware has changed needs a repair disk to make it work, which I don't have.

How to make my win 11 bootable under such situation?

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  • The way you make Windows 11 bootable is you reverse the actions you took. Have you done that? Why did you do those actions? You likely miss identified the first partition.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 16:38
  • @Ramhound, the only usage of the first 500M Win10 partition is to boot the second 80.3G Win11 partition. I know what I'm doing -- A normal Windows partition should not rely on another different partition to boot itself.
    – xpt
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 18:28
  • I don't disagree; However, the quickest way to resolve your problem is to revert your change, then modify your system to boot properly, and only after it's working get rid of the partition. After your change did you modify your BCD to point to the correct partition? You will need to download a WIndows 10 ISO to resolve your problem by the way (which is that repair disk Windows wants).
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 18:29
  • I only set the bootable flag to the second Win11 partition, and don't know what else I should do, like how to modify the BCD (which apparently where the problem is indeed coming from) and what else I should also be doing. Yes, the end goal is to get rid of the partition. OK then, I'll go through the whole nine yards then. Thanks @Ramhound
    – xpt
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 18:31
  • Provide your current BCD. You will also have to provide the partition id of the partition that the Windows installation you want to boot on is installed to.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 15, 2022 at 18:54

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