(SOLVED) Looking for faster way to launch Mint from Win11 dual boot installation

[MFISH]

Hello,

I installed Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64-bit from a bootable USB to dual boot with Windows 11. My HP 17-cp0xxx laptop came with Windows 11 installed and I wanted the ability to switch between OSs while I learned Linux. It worked until I booted to Windows. I’ve figured out a work-around to launch Mint but wondering if anyone knows a faster way.

What happened:
I installed Linux Mint alongside Windows Boot Manager to the drive:
SCSI 1 (0,0,0) (sda) –WDCWD10SPZX-60Z and allocated
300.8 GB to W11 files (52.5 GB) /dev/sda3 (ntfs)
698.5 GB to Linux Mint /dev/sda4 (ext4)

Upon restart, I got to a dual boot menu listed below and selected the first option:

Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon
Advanced options for Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon
Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/sda1)
UEFI Firmware Settings

Several ACPI BIOS errors displayed but it booted successfully into Mint.

The boot menu and ACPI errors happened every time I restarted but the program always launched Mint.

Then I choose the Window Boot option to see if it would launch W11. It did but the boot option menu never returned after that. The laptop would only launch Win11.

I’ve tried several ways to get it to return to the boot menu, including changing the UEFI boot order in BIOS setup, but when selecting OS boot manager, I’m not given an option to choose ubunto; it only displays Windows. So after many, many restarts, the only thing that I’ve found that works is:

Powering On and pressing ESC key to get to the Startup Menu
Pressing F9 for the Boot Menu
Selecting Boot from EFI file
Selecting the only file system displayed; this is what’s shown on the screen but it doesn’t display complete path: _i (PNP0a03, 0) \ PCI (8|2) \PCI (0|1) \SATA (0,ffff,0) \HD (Part1, Sig89e590b9-be4c-45c6-8782-29a63e3cd02b)
Then I select <EFI> and press Enter
then <ubuntu> and press Enter
then shimx64.efi and press Enter (the other options don’t work: <..>, mmx64.efi, grubx64.efi)
and then I get to a boot menu. The options on this menu are:

Start Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64-bit
Start Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon 64-bit (compatibility)
OFM install (for manufacturers)
Check the integrity of the medium

I choose the first selection and it boots into Mint. Seems like there should be a faster way or maybe some software program that can fix it?

[DJ55]

The first dual boot menu you saw is the correct one. I'm betting that fast startup is turned on in Windows. If so, I understand that can prevent normal operation of the LM dual boot capability. So, turn off fast startup in Windows. Often, turning off secure boot in your bios can be beneficial also.

[MFISH]

Hi and thanks for responding. I disabled Fast Start and Secure Boot but W11 still wants to override the menu. So I installed Hasleo’s EasyUEFI and created a boot path for Mint because only Windows was showing and moved Mint (ubunto) to load first. It fixed the problem, the dual boot menu appears, but whenever I boot W11, it changes W11 to be first. It’s an easy enough fix because I’m already in W11 and I just open EasyUEFI and move ubunto boot above Win and restart. But I’ll have to purchase the software if I can’t find another solution because it’s only a 15-day free trial.

[DJ55]

I'm no expert, so hopefully someone comes along that is. That said, a couple of things come to mind that I'd look into if this was my PC. First, just to double-check, make sure you disabled Fast Startup in Windows itself (as opposed to just changing a fast boot option in your bios). Second, it sounds like Windows modified your Grub bootloader and the EasyUEFI software is providing a workaround--one that I would not want to continue to use or pay for. I'd look at my Grub configuration and update it as necessary (see https://www.howtogeek.com/196655/how-to ... -settings/ and https://itsfoss.com/update-grub for more info). If you don't like working with the LM text editor, you can also use a GUI program called Grub-customizer to customize your Grub configuration; it can be installed from LM's Software Manager. Lastly, if boot changes absolutely need to be made on your Windows side, I'd look at Grub2Win at https://sourceforge.net/projects/grub2win/. It says it's compatible with W11 and Mint.

(If you think Windows replaced your Grub entirely, that can be fixed. Let us know if you think Grub has been removed.)

[MFISH]

Hi Dave, thank you for the links and suggestions. I am just learning Linux and these articles are really informative. It seems like if Win changed Grub, the path wouldn’t appear/work in EasyUEFI. Win11 changes the boot order when I launch it. That’s how EasyU is handy because once in Win11, I open it and move Ubunto back to the first boot order. This saves me from the power-on, esc key, multi-selection thru boot utility sequence I was doing. But EasyU doesn't let me change Win as the default boot nor let me edit the default boot's path. However, I only need to use EasyU if I’ve launched Win11. As long as I don’t use Win11, the boot menu appears when powering on with LM as the first option and if I don’t select anything, it opens in Mint. So I’m problem free as long as I don’t launch Win...and avoiding Win is a lot easier than I thought it would be!

[SimonPeter]

Another solution may be renaming $ESP/EFI/Microsoft to something else , adding a GRUB entry to chainload $ESP/EFI/<the_name_you_gave_while_renaming_Microsoft>/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and running sudo update-grub after that.

[DJ55]

Hi Dave, thank you for the links and suggestions. I am just learning Linux and these articles are really informative. It seems like if Win changed Grub, the path wouldn’t appear/work in EasyUEFI. Win11 changes the boot order when I launch it. That’s how EasyU is handy because once in Win11, I open it and move Ubunto back to the first boot order. This saves me from the power-on, esc key, multi-selection thru boot utility sequence I was doing. But EasyU doesn't let me change Win as the default boot nor let me edit the default boot's path. However, I only need to use EasyU if I’ve launched Win11. As long as I don’t use Win11, the boot menu appears when powering on with LM as the first option and if I don’t select anything, it opens in Mint. So I’m problem free as long as I don’t launch Win...and avoiding Win is a lot easier than I thought it would be!

I'm finding it easy to avoid Windows also, but I do still have a couple of apps I need to get to in Windows so I'm glad my dual-boot setup is working fine. Since your Grub is apparently intact and Windows is just over-riding it, one last suggestion from me is to try running a couple of commands in Windows. Open Command Prompt as an administrator and enter

Code: Select all

bcdedit /enum firmware

to list all of the installed boot managers and obtain the path to your Grub. Then enter the command

Code: Select all

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi

with the actual path at the end of that command being the path you obtained from the first one. (The path I've listed here is the one my system has.) This command should force Windows to properly reboot into your Grub. If it works but Windows still resets the boot order upon subsequent uses of Windows, then you could use a batch file to enter the command as an administrator each time you're in Windows.

[MFISH]

Success!!!!

I did have to add quotes around {bootmgr} to get it to work in Win 11 and also change the ubuntu path. Not sure why but when I used the \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi, it successfully changed the path but on reboot, all the formatting was lost in the boot menu and the Mint display was enlarged. I couldn’t change the display (display app wouldn’t open...nor any of the system settings).

So, the command that worked was:

bcdedit /set “{bootmgr}” path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

Thanks for all of your help!

[DJ55]

I'm glad it worked. You might need to repeat the process after installing Win 11 updates.

Just for background for anyone else that comes across this solution: Prior to Win 11, adding the quotes was needed when running the command in PowerShell but usually not in Command Prompt. Also, shimx64.efi is, essentially, the version that supports active Secure Boot functionality. So, if Secure Boot is enabled in the UEFI, you may need to use the path to shimx64.efi rather than grubx64.efi.