EndeavorOS Bootloader disappearing

By the way I do know there are other forums that talk about this issue, but I honestly just didn’t understand anything said in them, and I’ve already broken my Distros a few times by just messing around so yea.. that’s why I’m posting in this category after all.

Anyways, I had dual-booted both Windows 10 and EndeavorOS, and everything was fine for a few weeks, but when I turned off my laptop today (and then turned it on a few hours later) Windows 10 decided to update. I didn’t really have a choice to not update, as it just started right after I turned my device on, but when I restarted it to boot into EndeavorOS, its boot option wasn’t there; in fact there was two Windows 10 boots (not sure why to be honest).

I kind of need my old EndeavorOS Distro back, as it had a few important files I still need (it’s alright if there isn’t a way to recover it, I can just re-do those files anyways). I’d also like to know if there is a way to make so Windows 10 doesn’t erase - or deletes from the Boot Loader - the EndeavorOS Distro, while still keeping Windows 10, as I still need it for a few things.

Thanks in advance!

Of course you can recover this is Linux not Windows.

Start by telling us what boot loader do you have installed? Systemd-boot or grub or another?
Windows more than likely reset your UEFI you can chroot from a live cd to fix the issue.

if you are using grub start here
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/system-rescue/repair-a-non-booting-grub/2021/03/

Check in your BIOS and see if it is still there as an option.

If not, you can re-add it.

@thefrog I’m not too sure what is my boot loader.. is there any way to check which one it is? Also thanks for the clarification!

@dalto I did do that before and there was nothing there, just two Windows boot loaders.

Edit: I was looking through my files and it seems as if it is indeed Grub, I’ll try to do what that link says.

Boot off the ISO, mount your partition and look in /mnt/etc/fstab. If your ESP is mounted at /efi, it is systemd-boot. If it is mounted at /boot/efi, it is grub.

Not sure why, but when I tried executing the command sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/efi it gave this response: mount: /mnt/efi: WARNING: source write-protected, mounted read-only.

I tried searching how to not make it just read-only, but all I found was a forum in Fedora, and some other sites, but none seemed to really help me, do any of you know what I could do to change it so it isn’t read-only?

One possible reason is if you haven’t disabled “fast startup” in Windows settings. This causes Windows to leave the disk dirty and then it gets mounted read only.

I disabled it but nothing seemed to happen, it still gives the same error/response.

Had to do some things, so I didn’t try anything else other than that. I did also try the command sudo chmod +w /mnt/efi but it didn’t seem to work..? It just gave the response: chmod: changing permissions of '/mnt/efi': Read-only file system, which as far as I know should change the directory’s writing privileges (do note that I’m still unfamiliar with Linux commands, so maybe chmod doesn’t do that..?)

I’ll probably try some more commands until I get it work.

For a vfat partition, the permissions are all set at mount time. You can’t change them with chmod/chown.

Try running dosfsck on it and then remounting it.

When I try using sudo mount -o remount,rw /mnt/efi after using dosfsck -a /mnt/efi it gives another response, which I think says /dev/sda1 is write-protected..? Not sure why though, also here’s the response, in case you want to see it: mount: /mnt/efi: cannot remount /dev/sda1 read-write, is write-protected.

looks like the windows ESP (efi partition) is used fro EndeavourOS too.
Is something like BitLocker or secure Boot in use?
FastBoot is in most cases what would cause such issue.. to make sure thats a Windows option not something in Bios/Firmware

@joekamprad I’ve checked and it doesn’t seem like it is Secure Boot, Fast Boot or Bitlocker, all of them are disabled from what I saw.

could you show full drive/partition overview?

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,RO,TYPE,MOUNTPOINTS,FSTYPE,LABEL

@joekamprad Here:

NAME SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS FSTYPE LABEL
loop0 2.6G 1 loop /run/archiso/airootfs squashfs
sda 59G 0 disk iso9660 EOS_202503
├─sda1 2.8G 0 part /run/archiso/bootmnt iso9660 EOS_202503
└─sda2 172M 0 part vfat ARCHISO_EFI

thats only the usb stick/iso

Ah, let me switch Distros then.

Wait.. where exactly am I supposed to execute that command in?

gene
rally it should show all installed drives not only the boot device.. so from LiveISO
you can also use lsblk -f

Seems as if not much changes..

NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0 squashfs 4.0 0 100% /run/archiso/ai
rootfs
sda iso9660 Joliet Extensi EOS_202503 2025-03-19-11-30-07-00
├─sda1 iso9660 Joliet Extensi EOS_202503 2025-03-19-11-30-07-00 0 100% /run/archiso/bo
otmnt
└─sda2 vfat FAT32 ARCHISO_EFI 67DA-AABF