Windows 11 not visible in GRUB or UEFI BIOS after installing EndeavourOS

General system Newbie
1

I have an Acer Nitro 5 with two 512GB SSDs. Windows 11 was installed on one SSD (KINGSTON RBUSNS8154P3512GJ1), and I recently installed EndeavourOS on the second SSD (WDC PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1014), which previously had Ubuntu.

During the EndeavourOS installation, I chose to erase the entire disk (WDC PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1014) and format it as ‘btrfs’ with swap set to “swap to file.”

After installing EndeavourOS, my Windows 11 on the other SSD is no longer visible in the GRUB bootloader or in my UEFI BIOS. In my bios i already have disabled ‘Secureboot’ and ‘FastBoot’.

I’ve already tried to reconfigure GRUB by adding ‘GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false’ to the configuration file and running ‘grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg’, but this didn’t resolve the issue.

Despite having the exact same problems as other users who have faced this issue before, I cannot apply the same solutions. Since my installation is new, I’m hoping for guidance on how to proceed.

How can I make my Windows 11 installation visible and bootable again? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for saurabh: 
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: WDC PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1014          
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 7C99E9DE-C433-40A6-8952-0A2B9015660D

Device           Start        End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme0n1p1    4096    2101247   2097152     1G EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p2 2101248 1000206899 998105652 475.9G Linux filesystem


Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 476.94 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Disk model: KINGSTON RBUSNS8154P3512GJ1             
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 25695DC2-7360-49AB-8095-E32C07CEF841

Device         Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/nvme1n1p1  2048      34815      32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme1n1p2 34816 1000214527 1000179712 476.9G Microsoft basic data

[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ lsblk -fm
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL       UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS   SIZE OWNER GROUP MODE
nvme0n1                                                                                              476.9G root  disk  brw-rw----
├─nvme0n1p1 vfat   FAT32             AC77-5ED7                            1021.4M     0% /boot/efi       1G root  disk  brw-rw----
└─nvme0n1p2 btrfs        endeavouros c58ea55b-329d-4588-8508-80bda3be5048  464.3G     2% /var/log    475.9G root  disk  brw-rw----
                                                                                         /var/cache                     
                                                                                         /swap                          
                                                                                         /home                          
                                                                                         /                              
nvme1n1                                                                                              476.9G root  disk  brw-rw----
├─nvme1n1p1                                                                                             16M root  disk  brw-rw----
└─nvme1n1p2 ntfs                     84BC980FBC97F9BE                                                476.9G root  disk  brw-rw----
[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ 

[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,2001,2002,2003
Boot0001* HDD0: WDC PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1014  PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1d,0x0)/Pci(0x0,0x0)/NVMe(0x1,00-1B-44-8B-44-C1-53-D0)/HD(1,GPT,6d52e94e-21b2-4f45-a5ae-9a0437924ed9,0x1000,0x200000)RC
      dp: 02 01 0c 00 d0 41 03 0a 00 00 00 00 / 01 01 06 00 00 1d / 01 01 06 00 00 00 / 03 17 10 00 01 00 00 00 00 1b 44 8b 44 c1 53 d0 / 04 01 2a 00 01 00 00 00 00 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 4e e9 52 6d b2 21 45 4f a5 ae 9a 04 37 92 4e d9 02 02 / 7f ff 04 00
    data: 52 43
Boot2001* EFI USB Device        RC
      dp: 7f ff 04 00
    data: 52 43
Boot2002* EFI DVD/CDROM RC
      dp: 7f ff 04 00
    data: 52 43
Boot2003* EFI Network   RC
      dp: 7f ff 04 00
    data: 52 43
2

I’m guessing you overwrote your Windows EFI. If you search online you can find the method to restore it (from a boot USB) with oh…10 commands or so.

3

Thank you for your response. I appreciate the suggestion, but I’m facing an additional challenge. My system is not recognizing the USB drive that I’ve flashed with the Windows 11 ISO. This means I can’t access the Windows recovery environment to attempt restoring the EFI.

Given this situation:

  1. Is there a way to make my system recognize the Windows 11 USB?
  2. If not, are there alternative methods to restore the Windows EFI partition without using a Windows boot USB?
4

If the USB is valid, and it’s not recognized you are obviously having BIOS or hardware issues.

I don’t know enough about Windows internals (thankfully) to answer that.

5

Check inside your ESP for bootloader files.

find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi"

Check what other systems grub can see

sudo os-prober

Post output of the above.

6 
[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ sudo find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi"
[sudo] password for saurabh: 
/boot/efi/EFI/endeavouros/grubx64.efi
/boot/efi/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$ sudo os-prober
[saurabh@saurabh-nitroan51554 ~]$
7

:mage: Calling my assistant :crystal_ball: !!!

Your Windows installation was in BIOS Legacy mode.
If you don’t want, or you cannot re-install Windows in UEFI mode, so you can see both EnOS and Windows normally, you may want to re-install EnOS in BIOS Legacy mode.

Test this scenario by switching the Boot mode in your UEFI/BIOS setup to BIOS only and try booting to your Windows installer.

8

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for your help and suggestions. I’m pleased to report that the problem has been solved.

It turned out that my Windows EFI partition had been deleted. I resolved the issue by recreating it using a bootable Windows USB drive.

Again, I appreciate all the assistance provided by the community.

1 Like
9

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