Dual-boot anxiety & dead graphics tablet

It finally happened to me. Windows disabled my dual-boot setup.

Today as I was setting up to teach somebody else’s online class, EOS obstinately decided not to recognize my Huion graphics tablet. I’ve never had a problem with it before, but now–15 minutes before showtime–no tablet. No biggie. This is a dual-boot laptop so I just booted up Windows 10. Then my Lenovo ThinkPad 3 did something unexpected. A Lenovo (not Microsoft) splash screen announced that I was getting an update. I heard the internal fan spool up to max RPM, then Windows 10 booted, so I taught the morning class without incident. Made me feel kind of gross using Windows though.

On my lunch break I decided to boot up EOS for some graphics tablet troubleshooting only to find that my boot menu is gone! I used the F12 key to access the EFI boot menu and–no option to boot anything except Windows!

I entered the regular EFI settings menu and found that the Lenovo security platform and secure boot were both enabled! I know I turned them off. How did this Lenovo update dick with my user settings?!?! Disabling them again did not restore my boot menu however.

MX to the rescue! I always keep MX on a USB stick in my laptop bag. I booted it up, opened MX Tools Boot Repair, and had it fixed in a few minutes. Dual-boot is back. I still don’t know why EOS ignores my Huion. They’ve been playing nice together for months. But at least I regained control of my boot choices.

My copy of Windows 10 came with the laptop so it is full of Lenovo bloatware. I may blow it out and install stock Windoze or maybe I’ll just flush Windoze altogether. If EOS won’t support my Huion tablet I’m eyeing Fedora 36 Cinnamon.

If this is not a request for support, you could change category to #lounge .
Else, describe your issue with details and provide info and logs as suggested in EnOS wiki.

Nevertheless, congratulations for your experience!! :rofl:

That type of thing is why when I dual boot I have linux/grub on a separate disk from Windows, so it can’t trash Grub. Although a couple of times something changed to primary boot option back to the Windows drive and I had to override it again…