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At first I had an SSD with windows 10 in it and a HDD for data. Then I partitioned the HDD for data for windows and 150 GB with Linux mint. I was booting through grub by choosing either windows or Linux mint.

Then I bought another HDD so I transferred windows data on the new HDD and I proceeded to install ubuntu on the old HDD.

During the Ubuntu installation I formatted the whole HDD and I installed Ubuntu no problem. However now I can't boot in windows as there is no windows entry in GRUB menu. I searched solutions in stackoverflow but nothing worked.
Any idea?

Edit1: From what I understand I have to make a boot partition in the HDD in order to see windows from GRUB again. Anyone has directions for this?

Nick Alexis
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  • Can you boot from Windows, if you have only the SSD with Windows connected? How did you copy Windows to the SSD? Is there any backup of your most improtant files? – sudodus Jun 27 '20 at 15:36
  • I cant boot in windows if I boot from SSD first. I can see the SSD files from ubuntu. I did not copy windows to SSD, I installed through windows live USB-stick long ago and have been using them. My data are safe on the second HDD. As I understand I must have disabled windows booter and replaced it with GRUB when I first installed linux mint and now I must have erased a partition that allowed GRUB to see windows. – Nick Alexis Jun 27 '20 at 15:44
  • Good, things are safe :-) What about the boot modes? Are you booting Ubuntu and Windows in the same boot mode (UEFI or BIOS alias CSM alias legacy mode)? What happens when you run the command line sudo update-grub in a terminal window of Ubuntu (and reboot)? Of course, at the update operation, the SSD with Windows must be connected. – sudodus Jun 27 '20 at 15:48
  • Not sure about the boot mode, how can I check??? I tried sudo update-grub it returns this but no change in GRUB menu:

    Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub'Sourcing file `/etc/default/grub.d/init-select.cfg' Generating grub configuration file ... Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-39-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.4.0-39-generic Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-26-generic Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-5.4.0-26-generic done

     – Nick Alexis Jun 27 '20 at 15:52
  • Maybe Boot-Repair and its boot-info summary can help us help you. It will show details about the bootloaders (and which boot-modes that are activated) and there will be advice about what to do. – sudodus Jun 27 '20 at 16:00
  • @sudodus Boot info summary https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/QZh7NzqbGn/

    karel's advice didnt help it says "error: no such device: /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi"

     – Nick Alexis Jun 29 '20 at 05:27
  • According to which of the answers in karel's link did you try (and fail)? 2. Have you tried to let Boot-Repair perform its "Suggested repair" (described at the tail end of the bootinfo summary)? -- 3. It seems to me that Boot-Repair thinks that Windows is healthy; 4. Maybe (when running Ubuntu) you can run sudo update-grub; 5. If it does not 'see' Wiindows' and add it to the grub boot menu, maybe the problem is that Windows was shut down in semi-hibernation mode alias 'fast startup'. In that case you might fix that using the repair mode when booted into a Windows installer drive.
    • – sudodus Jun 29 '20 at 10:46
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    I tried many things (i dont even remember which) and I couldnt fix it. I was planning on buying another SSD and giving my mom my old one anyway so I got windows on the new SSD and reverted to linux mint 20 again as they seem more stable than ubuntu to me. Now everything works as intended. Thanx for your effort. – Nick Alexis Jul 06 '20 at 11:34
  • It makes me sad, that you abandoned Ubuntu :-( Anyway, I'm glad that you are still using Linux, and thanks for sharing your solution :-) – sudodus Jul 06 '20 at 15:01