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Linux -> Windows 11 & Linux Mint 22.3, dual boot (Dell Optiplex 3070)

then untick it.
no it wont work on old hardware.
AND people have already explained how to make one of those...
 
pendragon1 said:
.
Click to expand...
windows is balking about the USB thumb drive.
installer: "we can't find a USB flash drive."
windows file manager: "you need to format the disk...."
my take: writing a .iso to a disk should not require formatting. You just write the .iso to the disk, shouldn't need a file system to write to.

Edit: maybe we can use the command line of the Windows installer to clean the usb thumb drive. Remember when we did that earlier in the thread? I really hope that we don't have to take out the M.2 drive that Windows is installed on in order to do that.
pendragon1 said:
AND people have already explained how to make one of those...
Click to expand...
how to make one of what?
Edit: I think you mean "make a USB thumb drive with the Windows 11 installer." Yes, I have a better understanding of the process after this thread.
 
Last edited:
pendragon1 said:
now that you have a working windows system, make a new usb and redo it properly.
Click to expand...
the media creation tool that interfaces with the Microsoft server claims to have successfully created the USB thumb drive. I achieved this by using a different USB thumb drive.
Right after that completed, I noticed that Microsoft server pushed the 2025 H2 directly to the machine (through Windows update). (edit: I think Windows had downloaded the update and was ready to restart and apply the update.) The machine is applying the update now.
 
Thinking about this more, I wouldn't think there is a big risk in waiting for version update to download through Windows Update. I mean, there are probably computers with the 2024 H2 version of Windows 11 still sitting in retail inventory. Retailers obviously have tried to clear them but maybe a retailer closed, sent the inventory out to other channels (liquidators or maybe back to the distributor).
 
I installed Linux on a 2nd internal drive and everything boots but it's not installed the way that I want it. Specifically, I want to have 2 EFI partitions, one for use by Windows and one for use by Linux. I assume that my motherboard firmware supports 2 EFI partitions. Unfortunately, I think the Linux install wrote to the Windows EFI. The reason that I say that is because I booted into Linux and it's mounted whereas the second EFI partition is not mounted. Now I am looking to restore the EFI partition to how it was before the Linux install. Once I do that, I probably wont be able to boot into Linux anymore. So, I will reinstall Linux at that point.

I came across this
How to Restore Deleted EFI System Partition in Windows
https://woshub.com/how-to-repair-deleted-efi-partition-in-windows-7/
edit 1: summary of the link: basically use the USB thumb drive, go into the command line, and use the disk tool that we used earlier in the thread.

Does something like that seem like a good path for me?

If I can get back to how I was and try again with the Linux install, maybe a plan is to back up the EFI partition using Foxclone.
 
5pips49 said:
Edit: I changed thread title to better reflect content of thread.

I got this computer second hand.
Dell Optiplex 3070
It had Windows on it when I received it. Since the computer rolled off of the assembly line ~ 2020, that must have been Windows 10 on it, probably Windows 10 pro. I installed Linux over that. Now, I want to install Windows 11.

Will I likely have some licensing difficulty?

Should I consider reinstalling Windows 10 first?
Click to expand...
As a general rule of thumb, if you want to dual boot Windows/Linux off the same drive, install Windows first followed by Linux. The best option is to use two SSD's/HDD's, have one with Linux and the other with Windows using their own bootloader's, and select either drive on POST using your UEFI boot menu. Windows likes to mess with the GRUB bootloader.
 
Maybe just reinstall just windows on the machine, then use Linux in a VM?
Dual booting and having Linux mount the Windows partition always sounds like disaster waiting to happen if Linux writes to the wrong location
 
dbwillis said:
Dual booting and having Linux mount the Windows partition always sounds like disaster waiting to happen if Linux writes to the wrong location
Click to expand...
Linux seems to mount the EFI partition that Windows created. I don't know how much additional writing it will do to that drive. As I understand, there are 2 problems. 1) Windows Update might overwrite the partition and remove what Linux wrote to the partition during the install. Then, Linux will not be able to boot; 2) usually, with a Linux install, I can take the drive out of the computer and put the drive in another computer. But, in my current setup, that's not possible because it's relying on "drive 1" EFI partition.
Mazzspeed said:
As a general rule of thumb, if you want to dual boot Windows/Linux off the same drive, install Windows first followed by Linux. The best option is to use two SSD's/HDD's, have one with Linux and the other with Windows using their own bootloader's, and select either drive on POST using your UEFI boot menu.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is what I have done.
Slight correction on the menu that appears at boot-- the GRUB boot loader comes up, not the UEFI boot menu. I can probably get to the UEFI menu if I want, though (tap F12 during startup).
Edit 1: yes, I got to the motherboard's boot manager. that one has choices: "Ubuntu," "Windows Boot Manager," and "...USB...drive." When I choose "Ubuntu," it loads GRUB, which is a Linux boot manager (and I think it's a bootloader, too). Grub allows me to choose Windows.
Mazzspeed said:
Windows likes to mess with the GRUB bootloader.
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe Windows has put it in a "needs repair" state. That is exactly what I am looking to counteract. I think that using a Linux dedicated EFI partition helps to avoid what you have mentioned.
 
Last edited:
Windows will do the same thing where if it detects the boot partition already it'll just use that one. If you want each drive to have its own you'll have to only have 1 drive connected at a time.
 
5pips49 said:
Slight correction on the menu that appears at boot-- the GRUB boot loader comes up, not the UEFI boot menu. I can probably get to the UEFI menu if I want, though (tap F12 during startup).
Click to expand...
You use your UEFI boot menu to select each separate drive depending on the OS you want to boot, this keeps Windows away from the Linux bootloader (although Windows is known to stuff it's bootloader on whatever drive it feels like using, whether that drive is mounted under Windows or not). It's a way to keep both OS's on their own seperate drives without having to resort to OS selection via bootloader's.

If you put both OS's on the same drive, you'll need to disable fast boot under Windows.
 
Mazzspeed said:
You use your UEFI boot menu to select each separate drive depending on the OS you want to boot, this keeps Windows away from the Linux bootloader (although Windows is known to stuff it's bootloader on whatever drive it feels like using, whether that drive is mounted under Windows or not). It's a way to keep both OS's on their own seperate drives without having to resort to OS selection via bootloader's.
Click to expand...
Ok. Makes sense. Now I just have to figure out how to set it up that way.
Mazzspeed said:
If you put both OS's on the same drive, you'll need to disable fast boot under Windows.
Click to expand...
I plan to use 2 separate drives. But, still I disabled fastboot. I am ok with not having it. I also read that I should disable CSM (Compatibility Support Module). But, I only read that after I installed Linux and was dual booting. So, I didn't work on that one at all yet.
 
Yay!! pendragon1 is back.

Before noticing pendragon1 post, I already did all of this.
1) I backed up the entire drive and then deleted the EFI system partition on the Windows drive.
Then,
following these instructions
https://woshub.com/how-to-repair-deleted-efi-partition-in-windows-7/
2) I booted to the Windows 11 USB thumb drive.
3) Shift F10 to open the command line.
4) Deleted a 16 MB partition on the drive. It's a partition that is right after the EFI partition.
5) created a 512 MB EFI system partition. I have over 100GB of additional disk space on the drive. So, I am hoping that it will put this partition in that free space, located at the end of the drive.
6) formatted the 512 MB as FAT32, label it as "system," assign letter G.
7) created a 16 MB MSR system partition

Skipping a couple of very minor things from this write up, I am now up to
"In my case, the drive letter C: is already assigned to the main Windows partition. If it’s not, assign the drive letter to it as follows:"

The problem is that the drive letter C is being used by the Windows 11 install thumb drive. So, I don't know what to do.
Edit 1: to clarify, C is assigned to the Windows 11 thumb drive, G is assigned to EFI partition on the Windows drive. No other drive letters are used.
 
if youre not using bitlocker you dont have to turn it off, just continue on. holy fuck...
 
5pips49 said:
1) I backed up the entire drive and then deleted the EFI system partition on the Windows drive.
Then,
following these instructions
https://woshub.com/how-to-repair-deleted-efi-partition-in-windows-7/
2) I booted to the Windows 11 USB thumb drive.
3) Shift F10 to open the command line.
4) Deleted a 16 MB partition on the drive. It's a partition that is right after the EFI partition.
5) created a 512 MB EFI system partition. I have over 100GB of additional disk space on the drive. So, I am hoping that it will put this partition in that free space, located at the end of the drive.
6) formatted the 512 MB as FAT32, label it as "system," assign letter G.
7) created a 16 MB MSR system partition

The problem is that the drive letter C is being used by the Windows 11 install thumb drive. So, I don't know what to do.
Edit 1: to clarify, C is assigned to the Windows 11 thumb drive, G is assigned to EFI partition on the Windows drive. No other drive letters are used.
Click to expand...
Now my computer assigned the letter C to the Windows main partition. Not sure what fixed it. Here is what I did-- exited and booted with a W10 installer thumb drive. list volume = same problem. So, I assigned Windows main partition to letter B. Also, Windows EFI partition didn't have any letter assigned to it (see step 6 above). Then, I exited and came back in with Windows 11 installer. And wala, the Windows main drive has letter C.
 
I got Windows to boot again but the UEFI boot menu showed:
Ubuntu
Windows boot manager
UEFI <the manufacturer's name of the Windows drive>
UEFI PMAP
I gave up at that point because I didn't know how to get it to look more normal. In hindsight, maybe I should have deleted all the choices from the UEFI boot menu before recreating the EFI partition.

So, I am back to square 1-- 2 blank drives.
I am trying to install Windows 11 with a custom size for the EFI partition. I am finding lots of tutorials but they don't work, look to be flat out wrong, or are way over my head.
All I want to do is create a 525 MB EFI partition and the rest can be whatever the defaults are. I am hoping for some advice.
 
5pips49 said:
Ok. Makes sense. Now I just have to figure out how to set it up that way.

I plan to use 2 separate drives. But, still I disabled fastboot. I am ok with not having it. I also read that I should disable CSM (Compatibility Support Module). But, I only read that after I installed Linux and was dual booting. So, I didn't work on that one at all yet.
Click to expand...
Pull Windows drive > Insert drive intended for Linux > partition as recommended and install. Once done, reinstall Windows drive and use your UEFI boot manager to select either the Windows or the Linux drive depending on the OS you intend to use.
 
Windows shouldn't overwrite anything in an ESP/EFI drive since its only placing EFI files & adds/modifies an EFI boot entry and/or order.
 
n3.emoji.gg%2Femojis%2F8508-iasip-charlie-headache.gif
 
Mazzspeed said:
Windows will stuff it's bootloader anywhere it likes assuming the drive is connected when Windows is initially installed.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it unfortunately defaults to any current ESP volume instead of making its own on the selected disk in setup. I've never liked that I can't set all partition sizes & mount points with Windows setup ever.
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
Yeah, it unfortunately defaults to any current ESP volume instead of making its own on the selected disk in setup. I've never liked that I can't set all partition sizes & mount points with Windows setup ever.
Click to expand...
Maybe entering the command line of the Windows installer and using diskpart?
Or, maybe you can use GParted (Linux tool)?
 
5pips49 said:
Maybe entering the command line of the Windows installer and using diskpart?
Or, maybe you can use GParted (Linux tool)?
Click to expand...
Sure, but Windows is still limited in how its done even after using Linux-based tools. diskpart has major GPT limitations that aren't worth fighting with.
 
Mazzspeed said:
Pull Windows drive > Insert drive intended for Linux > partition as recommended and install. Once done, reinstall Windows drive and use your UEFI boot manager to select either the Windows or the Linux drive depending on the OS you intend to use.
Click to expand...
This the way to maintain one’s sanity. Might be too late though.
 
Whats the reason to have dual boot? Linux needs the actual hardware for something?
Straight windows install on an installed single blank drive, then install in the other drive, wipe/format and run Linux in a VM, with the VM stored on that drive #2 ?

Just thinking ahead when Windows does some feature/version upgrade and rewrites the boot info, then youll have to redo all this EFi stuff
 
I've ran dual boot systems that worked fine after a Windows upgrade. I think that with the Linux projects that Microsoft has been running, the upgrade process isn't as brutal as it used be.
 
dbwillis said:
Whats the reason to have dual boot? Linux needs the actual hardware for something?
Click to expand...
Main reason that's top of mind:
Because some SSD manufacturers only offer a way to update the firmware via online Windows. (I am very disappointed in that, obviously. I mean Windows is one thing but online Windows?!) Edit: also, probably not best idea to update the firmware of a drive through non-native interface (ie. USB adapter).
 
werent you told not to worry about the firmware, since there isnt any anyways? just leave it on windows an call it a day.
 
5pips49 said:
I think you are talking about a thread that was about an old HDD. I have other drives that might need updates.
Edit: here is the thread
https://hardforum.com/threads/no-firmware-updates-for-8-year-old-wd-hdd.2047711/
It's also useful to have an online Windows b/c of the wide software support.
Click to expand...
dont care.
99.9% of the time they never need updates. the only one i can think of that has was the samsungs a few years ago, and ive been doin this for 30+ years...
leave it with just windows and call it a day.
 
pendragon1 said:
dont care.
99.9% of the time they never need updates. the only one i can think of that has was the samsungs a few years ago, and ive been doin this for 30+ years...
leave it with just windows and call it a day.
Click to expand...
I've had some fun with NVMe drives that need updates & the manufacturer have none to provide. Thankfully I had to fix an enterprise U.2 NVMe with a firmware update from HPE through Linux that helped a ton.

Using Hiren's WinPE Boot CD or Windows2Go are ways around needing Windows if Linux is the absolute default daily driver. If not, I totally agree that sticking with Windows might be the best way for updating most firmware.
 
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