Mint works fine...but Windows 10 will not!

[MintyGoodness]

Hi folks,

After thinking about getting on board Linux for a couple of years, I finally pulled the trigger last week and installed Mint. The installation was straightforward and occurred without any issues whatsoever, but then I discovered that I couldn't return to Windows 10. It simply won't boot up and nothing I've done over the last few days has rectified it. So I'm calling on your collective wisdom and expertise to hopefully get this resolved.

Here are some of the key details:
- I'm running a Dell Inspiron 5680 with 64Gb RAM, 3 internal drives (256Gb SSD - which Windows was installed on, 1Tb HDD & 2Tb HDD).
- Mint 64-bit was installed alongside Win 10 64-bit. During the Mint installation, I was prompted to select a location for it and accepted the suggested 1Tb drive location. I later discovered Mint was instead installed on the 2Tb drive, but I don't know why as the 1Tb drive had plenty of available space and I wasn't prompted to pick another location anyway.
- The "Grub" menu appears and I have four options: Mint 21 Cinnamon, Advanced Options for Mint 21 Cinnamon, Windows Boot Manager & UEFI Firmware Settings.

As I said, the installation went well and I can get into Mint just fine. When I then attempted to boot back into Win 10 a little while later, it simply returned to the Grub menu. And this is about as good as it gets now. I just can't boot into Win 10! Foolishly, I didn't create a system image before attempting the Mint installation, because I'm impulsive and occasionally impatient. So I just launched right into the process with no fallback position. In hindsight, this was rather idiotic...and now here I am.

So what have I done to resolve this so far? Well, here's a summary of some of the actions I've attempted over two to three days (as recommended by various people on a range of different websites and forums):

- I went into the BIOS and changing the boot order priority. Up until today, Windows 10 was an option but now it's gone, probably because I inadvertently made it disappear with one of the actions below (or another one I can't recall). Anyway, moving Win 10 to the top and disabling the other boot options (including Ubuntu, which is how Mint appears to be labelled there) made no difference.
- From the MS website, I downloaded the Win 10 ISO image and stuck it on a USB drive to then try and do a repair job. I then tried to do this by using Ventoy (as recommended on this forum - forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=352449) but that didn't seem to do anything either or I didn't configure something correctly with it. When I last ran this earlier today, it said it couldn't find a valid system image file or something similar. I don't understand why the official one I got from the MS website was no longer valid. Could it have expired?
- Using Terminal, I tried "sudo update-grub".
- In the BIOS, I deselected Secure Boot and allowed Legacy Boots.
- I've run a program called Macrium Reflect (which sits on the USB drive) to conduct a boot repair. It doesn't work but DOES allow me to run a Command Prompt session easily, which is helpful.
- Windows Repair doesn't do anything. It just says it cannot be repaired.
- I've followed the Diskpart, BCDBoot and Bootrec steps in Command Prompt (as found on this page: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/command ... t-records/). I get errors.
- There are probably numerous other actions I've taken too, but I end up with only Mint as a workable OS. This is obviously good because I can at least still do drive backups before trying anything extreme like a system reset, if that ends up being the best solution.

To try and understand what's happened and to see if any of my previous files and folders had been affected (or deleted somehow), I went into the Drives app in Mint. This has been useful and I've been able to ascertain the configuration and location of the installations - and confirm that nothing appears to have been lost. But I am perplexed by the layout and number of partitions that exist.

I was going to insert an image here to make this easy to view but I'm not sure how to do it.

Windows was installed on the SSD (Volume 5) but now appears to be sitting on the 2Tb drive as well (Volume 4)! When I'm in Command Prompt, Windows can be found on drive X:, not C: or E: as expected.

This is a really long post. And I'm really tired from trying to resolve this without any success so far. So I genuinely hope that the members here might be able to provide guidance around what to do next. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Before I finish this, here's the INXI report, just to make this even longer...

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-43-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.9
    tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Dell product: Inspiron 5680 v: 2.1.0 serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 3 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0PXWHK v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell v: 2.1.0
    date: 05/10/2019
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: Intel Core i7-8700 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Coffee Lake rev: A cache:
    L1: 384 KiB L2: 1.5 MiB L3: 12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 4375 high: 4400 min/max: 800/4600 cores: 1: 4350 2: 4327 3: 4392 4: 4376
    5: 4400 6: 4399 7: 4374 8: 4386 9: 4359 10: 4358 11: 4383 12: 4399 bogomips: 76799
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GP104 [GeForce GTX 1070] vendor: Dell driver: nvidia v: 515.65.01 pcie:
    speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: none off: DVI-D-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, HDMI-A-1
    bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1b81
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: nvidia
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,nouveau,vesa gpu: nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 95
  Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 96 diag: 587mm (23.1")
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 515.65.01
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 200 Series PCH HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a2f0
  Device-2: NVIDIA GP104 High Definition Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:10f0
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-43-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Dell driver: r8169
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: d000 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
  IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Dell
    driver: ath10k_pci v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:0042
  IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-12:5 chip-ID: 0cf3:e009
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: down bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block:
    hardware: no software: yes address: <filter>
RAID:
  Hardware-1: Intel SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci v: 3.0 bus-ID: 00:17.0
    chip-ID: 8086:2822
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 3.07 TiB used: 51.22 GiB (1.6%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM010-2EP102 size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Western Digital model: WD20EZRZ-00Z5HB0 size: 1.82 TiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
  ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: SK Hynix model: SC311 SATA 256GB size: 238.47 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter>
  ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD1200BEVS-00UST0 size: 111.79 GiB
    serial: <filter>
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 141.06 GiB used: 50.84 GiB (36.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb4
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511 MiB used: 5.3 MiB (1.0%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdb3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swapfile
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 16 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
  Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Western Digital WD Passport (WDXMS) type: Mass Storage
    driver: usb-storage rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip-ID: 1058:0702
  Device-2: 1-4:3 info: Dell MS116 Optical Mouse type: Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid rev: 2.0
    speed: 1.5 Mb/s chip-ID: 413c:301a
  Device-3: 1-5:4 info: Dell KB216 Wired Keyboard type: Keyboard,HID driver: hid-generic,usbhid
    rev: 1.1 speed: 1.5 Mb/s chip-ID: 413c:2113
  Device-4: 1-12:5 info: Qualcomm Atheros type: Bluetooth driver: btusb rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 0cf3:e009
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 10 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8 C mobo: 27.8 C gpu: nvidia temp: 36 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1020 fan-1: 1133 gpu: nvidia fan: 27%
Repos:
  Packages: 2399 apt: 2393 flatpak: 6
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list
    1: deb https: //download.opensuse.org/repositories/Emulators:/Wine:/Debian/xUbuntu_18.04/ ./
    2: deb http: //dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ artful main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb https: //mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/linuxmint-packages vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http: //mirror.overthewire.com.au/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http: //mirror.overthewire.com.au/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http: //mirror.overthewire.com.au/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-focal.sources
    1: deb [arch=amd64 i386] https: //dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu focal main
Info:
  Processes: 340 Uptime: 36m Memory: 15.43 GiB used: 1.72 GiB (11.1%) Init: systemd v: 249
  runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.2.0 alt: 11 Client: Unknown python3.10 client inxi: 3.3.13

If you've made it this far, I thank you for reading. And if you can help me to resolve the mystery of the missing Win 10 OS - and, more importantly, how to get it back - I will be extremely grateful.

Thanks,
Ben

ps. apologies if I've messed up any of the formatting or posting conventions. It's all starting to blur...

[Dan-cer]

Welcome to this forum!

The point, after all, is to determine if and where Windows can be found. To do this, read this post: https://superuser.com/questions/1392316 ... oot-loader,

or this:
https://linuxconfig.org/booting-a-ms-wi ... using-grub

[AndyMH]

First to find out what bits of win are still there.

The output from sudo parted --list will show all your drives and partitions - size and partition type, e.g. ntfs or ext4. Do your ntfs partitions still exist?

In your file manager, all the partitions should be listed in the devices pane on the left (it will be showing as xxGB volume), click on what you think is the win C: partition to mount it - are the files you expect to see still there?

Standard partitions on a win 10 install - MS reserved, normally 16MB, win C: (ntfs) and a recovery partition (ntfs).

There should be an EFI partition on the SSD, format fat32, size < 500MB, with the flags esp & boot set. If there is one, mount it. The easiest way is to use the disks application, select the drive in the left panel, the partition in the right panel and click the 'start' button underneath. It will tell you where it mounts, click on the link to open with your file manager. You are looking for a windows folder in there containing the win bootloader.

[MintyGoodness]

Welcome to this forum!

The point, after all, is to determine if and where Windows can be found. To do this, read this post: https://superuser.com/questions/1392316 ... oot-loader,

or this:
https://linuxconfig.org/booting-a-ms-wi ... using-grub

Thank you!

Following the steps suggested in the first link posted above, I ran the "sudo os-prober" command and it didn't show anything. It accepted the command but after asking for my password, it just showed another prompt line (sorry, I don't know the correct lingo here). It didn't say whether an OS was found or not. I'll assume not?

I have run the "sudo update-grub" command previously but, as I mentioned in my OP, the Grub menu lists Windows already. It just doesn't boot when I select it.

Further down in that page linked above, someone suggested using Boot Repair tool. I actually did try this tool but to no effect. Maybe that's why this suggestion had a negative vote on the page

The second link provided shows how to add Windows to the Grub menu. Once again, this is not the problem but thanks for your reply though.

[MintyGoodness]

First to find out what bits of win are still there.

The output from sudo parted --list will show all your drives and partitions - size and partition type, e.g. ntfs or ext4. Do your ntfs partitions still exist?

In your file manager, all the partitions should be listed in the devices pane on the left (it will be showing as xxGB volume), click on what you think is the win C: partition to mount it - are the files you expect to see still there?

Standard partitions on a win 10 install - MS reserved, normally 16MB, win C: (ntfs) and a recovery partition (ntfs).

There should be an EFI partition on the SSD, format fat32, size < 500MB, with the flags esp & boot set. If there is one, mount it. The easiest way is to use the disks application, select the drive in the left panel, the partition in the right panel and click the 'start' button underneath. It will tell you where it mounts, click on the link to open with your file manager. You are looking for a windows folder in there containing the win bootloader.

Thanks AndyMH. Here's the results (which I wanted to paste as an image originally but couldn't figure out how to do so):

Code: Select all

Model: ATA ST1000DM010-2EP1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  135MB   134MB   primary  fat32        boot
 2      135MB   1000GB  1000GB  primary  ntfs


Model: ATA WDC WD20EZRZ-00Z (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                          Flags
 1      17.4kB  134MB   134MB                Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 2      135MB   1845GB  1845GB  ntfs         Basic data partition          msftdata
 3      1845GB  1845GB  537MB   fat32        EFI System Partition          boot, esp
 4      1845GB  2000GB  155GB   ext4


Model: ATA SK hynix SC311 S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 256GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End    Size    File system  Name                          Flags
 1      1049kB  525MB  524MB   fat32        EFI system partition          boot, esp
 2      525MB   660MB  134MB                Microsoft reserved partition  hidden, msftres
 3      660MB   241GB  240GB   ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, msftdata
 4      241GB   241GB  554MB   ntfs                                       hidden, diag
 5      241GB   255GB  13.7GB  ntfs                                       hidden, diag
 6      255GB   256GB  1143MB  ntfs                                       hidden, diag

In answer to your first question, it does appear that the NTFS partitions do indeed exist.

The SSD which should contain the Windows OS is indeed still there - but the same partitions appear to be replicated in the 1Tb HDD too, with some slight differences. The MS Reserved partition sizes are the same but the EFI system partitions are either 524Mb (on the SSD) or 134Mb (on the 1Tb HDD).

As suggested, I have mounted the EFI partition from the SSD. I then opened the folder EFI / MICROSOFT / BOOT which has a couple of weird things going on which might be related. The BCD files either have the extension .bak, .old, .stl or .log. There are also three BCD files with some additional characters:
"BCD{e714062f-2afc-11e8-ab65-8cec4b4dc33d}.TM.blf."
"BCD{e714062f-2afc-11e8-ab65-8cec4b4dc33d}.TMContainer00000000000000000001.regtrans-ms"
"BCD{e714062f-2afc-11e8-ab65-8cec4b4dc33d}.TMContainer00000000000000000002.regtrans-ms"

Are these anything to be wary of? Should there be a current or active BCD file? I'm assuming that changes have been made to the BCD file, some by me in my various attempts to resolve, and others in the normal process of the installation of Mint.

As for the actual bootloader, I'm not sure which file it is. Is it "bootmgfw.efi" or "bootmgr.efi"?

Thanks again for your assistance. I'll await further guidance and will respond accordingly.

[mikeflan]

I ran the "sudo os-prober" command and it didn't show anything. It accepted the command but after asking for my password, it just showed another prompt line

Same for me. I'm not sure why, but apparently no response is not as bad as you might think. But then - I have no windows.

Code: Select all

$ sudo os-prober
[sudo] password for mike:     
$

[AndyMH]

For os-prober to find other OS they must be installed in the same mode as mint, e.g. all UEFI or all legacy.

As os-prober finds nothing it suggests that what might be win on sdc (your ssd) does not have a valid bootloader in its EFI partition, sdc1. You have an MS reserved partition, and any of sdc4-6 could be your recovery partition. sdc might be your win C: but what troubles me is that the flag hidden is set, I would have expected just msftdata?

But you have found a windows folder in sdc1 with files in it. Unfortunately, I don't have a dual boot UEFI system to hand, so cannot tell you what files should be in there, nor do I know enough about win boot issues to offer other than limited suggestions (some of which you have tried) on how to fix it.

- In the BIOS, I deselected Secure Boot and allowed Legacy Boots.

Leave secure boot off, but disable legacy boot. This might mean that when you booted a win iso it booted in legacy mode - then unable to fix problems with UEFI boot? Boot your win install stick and see if it has anymore success fixing the problem.

Code: Select all

 3      660MB   241GB  240GB   ntfs         Basic data partition          hidden, msftdata

Boot mint and run disks. Select sdc, your ssd, in the left pane, select sdc3 in the right pane and then mount it (it's the button that looks like 'play', a right pointing arrow), it will show you the mount point in a link below. Click on it to show you the contents in your file manager, I expect it will show all your win files?

Close disks and the file manager, install gparted from software manager. This is the standard linux partition editor. The drive selector is a drop-down top right, select sdc (your ssd), right click on sdc3 and 'manage flags'. Turn off the hidden flag. Does this make any difference when you boot your win install stick and try to repair?

What has happened on your other drives, I have no idea. sdb (your 2TB) looks like it has mint installed on it in UEFI mode alongside another copy of win? sda (your 1TB) drive potentially looks like another win, but on a drive with a legacy partition table.

It might help if you disconnect sdb and sda before booting your win install stick and trying repair - more than one win install might be confusing it.

Beyond that, can't offer anything else. If nobody has any better ideas you might have more success on a windows forum.

[MintyGoodness]

Thanks again for your suggestions Andy.

I attempted your first suggestion of changing the "hidden" flag of SDC and I updated the BIOS to disallow legacy boots. Unfortunately, these changes didn't resolve the problem and the repair process didn't work.

When you say "disconnect sdb and sda before booting" my win install USB to attempt a repair, what do you mean? Do I disconnect through Disks in Mint? Or is there a way to do it via the BIOS? The weird thing is, I don't seem to be able to adjust the HDD/SSD options in the BIOS or change the order of these drives for booting. I could a few days ago but the option is gone now. The SSD is currently third on the list, which does not make sense to me.

Just out of interest, would it be possible to uninstall the Linux Mint OS? The only thing is, booting in Mint is currently useful for it allows me to still tinker with things or access drives and files. I just can't run the applications I need to run (since they're Win-based).

Anyway, I'm currently doing a backup of my files (which should've been done before installing Mint, of course) and I may then resort to a reinstallation of Windows. I know this is a Mint forum and I'm interested in using the OS. But I have a few applications in Win10 that can only be run there and as much as I detest MS, I am going to need to persist with it. If I do a new PC build at some point in the future, I'd like to start fresh with Mint without anything else installed. If I then go with a dual boot system, it'll be a lot easier to configure from the get go and resolve potential issues.

[AndyMH]

By disconnect I mean physically disconnect. I'm assumed you have a desktop where it is easy to disconnect the sata cables.

What win programs, dependent on what they are, running win in a VM may be an acceptable solution. I do it with win7 for office 2016 and coreldraw. No good if games.

The other potential solution is wine (or the commercial version, crossover), I use crossover for word/excel 2013 and a couple of other programs. Not everything works with wine.

[bendipa]

You have a number of issues occurring here.

1) "In the BIOS, I deselected Secure Boot and allowed Legacy Boots.". . .
First of all Secure Boot is an optional feature of UEFI as opposed to Legacy BIOS (LB), which does not have that feature. From the output of parted -l, clearly your computer was configured to use UEFI and not LB. I can telll necause your boot partition on the sdb disk is showing the ESP flag.

2) Furthermore, your 2TB sdb disk is formatted as a GPT drive. That means Win 10 must operate on a UEFI system, not LB. So as you said you switched to LB, that's one reason Windows will not function. So switch back to UEFI in your BIOS configurations, and disable Secure Boot.

3) I was prompted to select a location for it and accepted the suggested 1Tb drive location. I later discovered Mint was instead installed on the 2Tb drive. . .
Obviouisly during installation,you selected sdb as the disk to place Mint, a common mistake made by newbies who aren't too sure on a multi-disk system, which disk is which. Linux doesn't have a mind of its own when you instruct it. It isn't incorrect to put Linux on the same disk as Windows, but it's bad practice, because if that disk should get corrupted or fail then potentially you could lose both systems in one fell swoop.
cc
4) Your sda disk is formatted to msdos, which means Windows on there can only run on LB. So you're mixing the 2 different BIOS systems (see 1). I don't think you've mentioned in your OP what Windows version resides there, or if it's the same version as on sdb. Whatever it is, it looks an incomplete installation as there's no MRP partition, unless it's a really old Windows version there (eg. XP), in which case it's incompatible with UEFI. So what exactly is on that sda disk? Also what is the Windows version on the 256 GB sdc disk. Is it the same as on sdb? You only need one copy of Win 10 on the system.

[MintyGoodness]

By disconnect I mean physically disconnect. I'm assumed you have a desktop where it is easy to disconnect the sata cables.

What win programs, dependent on what they are, running win in a VM may be an acceptable solution. I do it with win7 for office 2016 and coreldraw. No good if games.

The other potential solution is wine (or the commercial version, crossover), I use crossover for word/excel 2013 and a couple of other programs. Not everything works with wine.

Okay, I'll have a crack at physically disconnecting later this week. I won't have a chance today or tomorrow but once I do get onto it, I'll report back my findings.

BTW, I had considered Wine and then had some issues with the installation of it in Mint. It failed to install via the Software Manager so I then followed instructions found online for a Terminal-based installation but that also failed. I think Mint is trying to tell me it really doesn't want me to go anywhere near my Win-based programs (or the OS itself).

Lastly, I saw a reply to this thread from a user named Pbear but that post has since been deleted before I had a chance to reply. The suggestion was to run a few commands in Terminal, which I did and I was going to reply with the results...but since the post is gone, I won't bother. I appreciate anyone chipping in with suggestions though and I'll respond to each of them.

[MintyGoodness]

You have a number of issues occurring here.

SNIP

You only need one copy of Win 10 on the system.

Thanks Bendipa - yep, I certainly do have a few issues. All of my own making, I admit, but I haven't found myself in a hole like this for over 30 years where I can't figure out or apply a workable solution. I feel like I'm searching for answers but only making the hole bigger!

Anyway, in answer to your replies, I'll respond as follows:

1. & 2. Thanks for confirming it should be a UEFI boot. The switch to legacy was suggested in another discussion involving someone having a similar problem. I suspected it wasn't right in my case, the more I read into it though. I have indeed changed the BIOS to reflect it's UEFI not LB.

3. This one is weird. I have to accept responsibility for the location of the installation of Mint but honestly don't recall the 2Tb drive (sdb) being an option when going through the setup process.

4. There should only be one version of Win 10 on the system. This was pre-loaded on the PC when I purchased it and I haven't upgraded to Win 11 (and, frankly, don't really want to). I would've assumed the OS would've been best placed on the SSD (sdc) and there is indeed an OS partition there already (240Gb). The system reserved partition on sda is named "File System" (134Mb) but I don't know what it is for exactly as there's another system reserved partition named "File System" on sdc that has 554Mb. That one has some additional info though - it is for MS Win Recovery Environment (System). Then, there's the File System partition on sdb with 537Mb that is marked as EFI System (FAT32). I assume this is not related to the File System (sdb4) which is clearly marked as Linux.

Thanks for your response and hopefully my replies here will help in coming up with possible suggestions for next steps.

[motoryzen]

BTW, I had considered Wine and then had some issues with the installation of it in Mint. It failed to install via the Software Manager so I then followed instructions found online for a Terminal-based installation but that also failed. I think Mint is trying to tell me it really doesn't want me to go anywhere near my Win-based programs (or the OS itself)

mintygoodness =- I'm almost willing to bet you accidentally typed or pasting something wrong, or typed or pasted the wrong selection for the wine version coherent to the ubuntu based build version you select on the site, or you are missing some sort of dependency ( which I honestly doubt as I was able to follow winehq.org's instructions to the T on both LM 20.3 and fresh clean install of LM 21 and both..just worked..absolutely OOTB fresh LM installs, no updates even = On a 2015 broadwell cpu laptop as well as my 4790k cpu build and of course my 5900x cpu main rig) ; possibly as well there could be a dependency conflict.

No insult meant, but speaking from my own trial and error experience with Wine...I have never been able to get Wine completely installed/properly working only via Wine in Software manager be it selecting the top one ( gui picture of red wine in a drinking glass -aka " windows API implementation - standard suite " 4 out of 5 stars which gives version 5.0-3ubuntu1..which is old a...f and then purging everything wine..period -- and then trying the other version which is technically called " wine-installer" which is supposed to install everything you need which is as of today showing version 5.0.3 ( again...OLD a..f. version)..and neither of those have ever worked for me. Others have and that's cool, but that's never been the case for me.

I've always had to following the instructions straight from winehq.org. Given this topic's title..I won't be rude to forum mods by going into further details to attempt help you with any Wine issues here in this topic, but feel welcome to private message me and I'll happily walk with you step by step even spoon feed if needs be. Legit encouragement-help meant here.

[AndyMH]

I'm wondering if win10 was installed in legacy mode. We've all been assuming win is UEFI boot because the vast majority are. Win10 might be legacy boot if it was an upgrade from win7.

Go into BIOS and change the boot mode from UEFI to legacy (might be labeled MBR). Then try booting from each of the drives. Not sure which drive is the one with the 'right' win. With legacy boot you select the drive* to boot not the bootloader, e.g. 'windows bootloader' or 'ubuntu'.




* with legacy boot the bootloader lives in the first sector on the drive.

[bendipa]

You have a number of issues occurring here.

SNIP

You only need one copy of Win 10 on the system.

Thanks Bendipa - yep, I certainly do have a few issues. All of my own making, I admit, but I haven't found myself in a hole like this for over 30 years where I can't figure out or apply a workable solution. I feel like I'm searching for answers but only making the hole bigger!

Anyway, in answer to your replies, I'll respond as follows:

1. & 2. Thanks for confirming it should be a UEFI boot. The switch to legacy was suggested in another discussion involving someone having a similar problem. I suspected it wasn't right in my case, the more I read into it though. I have indeed changed the BIOS to reflect it's UEFI not LB.

3. This one is weird. I have to accept responsibility for the location of the installation of Mint but honestly don't recall the 2Tb drive (sdb) being an option when going through the setup process.

4. There should only be one version of Win 10 on the system. This was pre-loaded on the PC when I purchased it and I haven't upgraded to Win 11 (and, frankly, don't really want to). I would've assumed the OS would've been best placed on the SSD (sdc) and there is indeed an OS partition there already (240Gb). The system reserved partition on sda is named "File System" (134Mb) but I don't know what it is for exactly as there's another system reserved partition named "File System" on sdc that has 554Mb. That one has some additional info though - it is for MS Win Recovery Environment (System). Then, there's the File System partition on sdb with 537Mb that is marked as EFI System (FAT32). I assume this is not related to the File System (sdb4) which is clearly marked as Linux.

Thanks for your response and hopefully my replies here will help in coming up with possible suggestions for next steps.

1) The system reserved partition on sda is named "File System" (134Mb) but I don't know what it is for exactly as there's another system reserved partition named "File System" on sdc that has 554Mb.

The 134 MB is an MBR boot partition (sda1) made to run Windows in LB, as I previously said. The question is what is the 1TB partition sda2, which is an NTFS partition? What is in there as it might be data, or it might even be an old Win system as I suggested in 4) above, but we can easily find out? On sdc the other 'reserved' partition sdc2, often referred to as MRP is not a boot partition and is a hidden partition installed with Win 7 upwards. We need to know what is on the other partition, sdc3 as that might well be a Win 10 installation. The flags, 'hidden, diag' indicate Win 10 recovery partitions Don't know why you'd need 3 of them.

2) sdb disk - sdb2 looks like a Win 10 system as well as sdc3. So we need to look at these 2 partitions more closely to see what's in them, otherwise it's just a guessing game. So to do this boot into Mint, open the terminal and run the following commands:
mkdir /mnt/{sdc,sdb}. (You may have to put a sudo at the start if it tells you that you need to use root permissions). Next run the following:
sudo mount /dev/sdc3 /mnt/sdc and sudo mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/sdb. Let us know if you get that far.

[MintyGoodness]

BTW, I had considered Wine and then had some issues with the installation of it in Mint. It failed to install via the Software Manager so I then followed instructions found online for a Terminal-based installation but that also failed. I think Mint is trying to tell me it really doesn't want me to go anywhere near my Win-based programs (or the OS itself)

mintygoodness =- I'm almost willing to bet you accidentally typed or pasting something wrong, or typed or pasted the wrong selection for the wine version coherent to the ubuntu based build version you select on the site, or you are missing some sort of dependency ( which I honestly doubt as I was able to follow winehq.org's instructions to the T on both LM 20.3 and fresh clean install of LM 21 and both..just worked..absolutely OOTB fresh LM installs, no updates even = On a 2015 broadwell cpu laptop as well as my 4790k cpu build and of course my 5900x cpu main rig) ; possibly as well there could be a dependency conflict.

No insult meant, but speaking from my own trial and error experience with Wine...I have never been able to get Wine completely installed/properly working only via Wine in Software manager be it selecting the top one ( gui picture of red wine in a drinking glass -aka " windows API implementation - standard suite " 4 out of 5 stars which gives version 5.0-3ubuntu1..which is old a...f and then purging everything wine..period -- and then trying the other version which is technically called " wine-installer" which is supposed to install everything you need which is as of today showing version 5.0.3 ( again...OLD a..f. version)..and neither of those have ever worked for me. Others have and that's cool, but that's never been the case for me.

I've always had to following the instructions straight from winehq.org. Given this topic's title..I won't be rude to forum mods by going into further details to attempt help you with any Wine issues here in this topic, but feel welcome to private message me and I'll happily walk with you step by step even spoon feed if needs be. Legit encouragement-help meant here.

Hey, thanks for your contributions and I didn’t take offence or deem anything you wrote as insulting. Everyone’s just trying to help, you included. As the cool kids say, it’s all good.

Just by the way, I’ve removed the unresponsive Wine package from Mint but may return to try it again, outside of Software Manager, as you suggested, some other time. Thanks again.

[motoryzen]

Thank you mintygoodness

I'm not a linux or even a wine expert, but I stick with what has always worked for me and it never lets me down..be it beta version of Mint Cinnamon or the regular official full releases since at least version 17 onward.

Let me know if you need a walkthrough. Cheers.

[MintyGoodness]

I'm wondering if win10 was installed in legacy mode. We've all been assuming win is UEFI boot because the vast majority are. Win10 might be legacy boot if it was an upgrade from win7.

Go into BIOS and change the boot mode from UEFI to legacy (might be labeled MBR). Then try booting from each of the drives. Not sure which drive is the one with the 'right' win. With legacy boot you select the drive* to boot not the bootloader, e.g. 'windows bootloader' or 'ubuntu'.

* with legacy boot the bootloader lives in the first sector on the drive.

Bloody hell, I typed a response and hit “submit” only to be asked to login again and my post was not saved or accepted!

So…just to clarify, Win 10 was not an upgrade from Win 7. Win 10 was preloaded on the machine when I got it. I did mention this earlier but it was probably missed among all the other details here.

I’ve since disconnected the two HDDs from the machine and I’ve booted using the SSD only. The options in the BIOS have been messed up now and Windows Bootloader or whatever it was does not appear any more. I can manually add a boot option which entails clicking on a drive and then searching through the sub folders for the appropriate file…but I don’t know which one is correct. It’s “Bootmgr.efi” or something like that, I think, based on my spotty research over the last week or so.

Anyway, I selected an option from the Dell Recovery folder. It opened up SupportAssist OS Recovery and there are three options: Scan hardware (which came up with no errors), Backup files (which says I don’t have any files to back up!) and Restore System. While the last option sounds like a good one, it will apparently erase everything on the drive to do a factory reset. This is not really an option I want to select at this point, if there are other options to explore.

I’m slowly working through these replies and we’ll see what comes about.

[MintyGoodness]

I’ve got good news! After more than a week of frustration and concern about not being able to boot into Windows and the possibility of needing to reinstall it completely (along with everything else), I had a breakthrough late last Friday night. I finally got back in, but it wasn’t pretty or straightforward.

Firstly, the suggestion by Andy to physically remove the HDDs was a good one for two reasons, the first of which is that I couldn’t properly backup all the files on one of the drives via Mint (one drive was fine but the bigger one kept spitting out errors for certain files during the copying process). Yes, this process should have been done BEFORE I attempted to install Mint but that ship had long since sailed on the seas of impulsiveness. So I opened up my older Win-7 PC and connected the larger HDD to it, albeit without a suitable slot or bracket to support it. It was hanging out the side of the case and was literally help up by a tissue box! Anyway, I was able to access the drive and got the files backed up.

The second reason why removing the HDDs was helpful is that working through the boot process with only the SSD meant I didn’t have to contend with the newly created partition containing the new Bootloader commands of the HDD causing interference. I guess that was the point of the suggestion though.

I’ll try to briefly summarise the key actions I then took to resolve this problem:

• I used my partner’s Win 10 machine to make another USB recovery drive but this didn’t repair anything, as hoped. However, it behaved differently than the Macrium recovery drive I'd created previously and I knew I could use this if I needed to take the nuclear option and reinstall Win completely.
• I did some research into the actual file referenced during the Bootloader process and located it on the SSD. Somehow, it wasn’t being referenced anymore in the BIOS boot options.
• It became apparent that something odd had taken place with the SSD and I couldn’t access the folders on it (to see where the critical files were placed). So I ran a CHKDSK function and that fixed it.
• The BCD (boot configuration data) file appeared to be screwed up too so I ran a repair function (bootrec /rebuildbcd - more details found here https://www.digitalcitizen.life/command ... -heading-4). Oddly, I had tried this previously but nothing changed, although this probably had to do with the other drives still being connected.
• I went into the BIOS settings and created a new Bootloader option, that pointed to the bootmgfw.efi file. All other boot options were disabled and I then tried restarting again for the 307th time. Despite the warnings about there being problems with the boot process, I was provided with a set of options I had not seen before. One option was to boot into safe mode so I cautiously selected that. It worked! The Win login prompt appeared again and Windows loaded in safe mode.
• Just to be on the safe side, I created a backup image of the SSD and then restarted into normal mode. Thankfully, it worked as well and everything seemed normal.

What a relief!

I started this post last Saturday but wasn't able to finish it. So I saved the draft and intended to complete it as soon as possible, but life's usual challenges and events took priority over the last six days so I'm having a crack at finishing only now. Here's the latest:

I have reconnected the two hard drives and I have not experienced any problems. Everything is fine! But the partitions created during the Mint installation still remain, of course.

Just out of interest, what would happen if I deleted the Mint partition that was created on one of the HDDs? Will it cause any issues? I’d like to try loading Mint from an external USB drive, rather than from a HDD. That seems to be a reasonable solution and perhaps one I should’ve considered originally. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to approach this (or links even)?

Lastly, I want to thank those of you who responded to my thread and provided support or recommendations for how to fix my issues, even if it started to look more like a Windows problem, rather than a Linux one. As I said, I’d like to try Mint but I think I'd rather boot it via USB. So if there are some good resources that explain this approach, feel free to share.

Thanks!
Ben

[mikeflan]

Glad you got things resolved.

Just out of interest, what would happen if I deleted the Mint partition that was created on one of the HDDs?

Probably nothing real bad. You might have to run a sudo grub-update.
But if you like where you are now, I would take a whole disk image before doing anything else.