Question Dual Booting: Installing Windows 10 and 11 with Linux Mint already installed peculiarity

[Dave3000]

I noticed that if I install Windows 11 with Linux Mint already installed on my SSD, that Windows does not create the 593 MiB Recovery partition if I don't delete the EFI partition that is already that I created when I installed Linux Mint. Also I noticed that if I do a reinstall of Windows but don't remove the Recovery partition from the last Windows install and I don't remove the existing EFI partition, Windows will ignore my Recovery partition even through it's there. I entered the reagentc /info command in the command prompt and it showed that was using the partition that is corresponding to my C drive for the Recovery files.

If I allow Windows to create a 2nd EFI partition during the install by unticking the esp and boot flags of the first EFI partition by using GParted, this will allow Windows to create it's own EFI partition and ignore the first EFI partition that I created when I installed Linux on my SSD and I installed Windows in the unallocated space that I choose, then Windows will create the 593 MiB Recovery partition during Windows installation. So basically, if I'm going to share the same EFI partition between Linux and Windows in my dual boot setup and install Windows after installing Linux, and I don't delete the EFI partition during the Windows setup, Windows won't create the Recovery partition. I know I can create the Recovery partition if Windows didn't create one during installation like its suppose to, and I learned how to do that from watching a YouTube video on how to do that and did that just recently. Does anyone here know why Windows won't create the Recovery partition if I don't delete the existing EFI partition during Windows installation? I don't delete the existing EFI partition during Windows install because the Linux boot files are located there (dual booting with Linux), and from what I read that the EFI spec is no more than one EFI partition per physical drive, but I don't seem to have any problem with 2 EFI partitions (one for Linux and one for Windows) installed on the same SSD. Is this a bug in the Windows 10 and 11 installation, in that it won't create a Recovery partition if there is already an existing EFI partition and you don't delete that partition and just let Windows use that EFI partition?

I want to add that if I manually create an EFI partition before installing Windows, even without an existing OS on the SSD, that 593 MiB Recovery partition won't be created during the Windows install. As to why I manually would create an EFI partition before installing Windows not too long ago, that's because some Linux distributions require a 500 MiB EFI parition and I was still distro hopping and only wanted one EFI partition on my SSD at the time as I read that more that one EFI partition per a physical drive is outside of EFI specifications.

 

[Tech Junky]

Backup mint if it's highly configured and wipe the disk. Install windows first and then go back and install mint and grub will pick up both and you're done.

 

[Dave3000]

My Mint installation is highly customized. So in a dual boot setup if I ever want to clean reinstall Windows I will also need to reinstall or restore a backed up image of Linux as well if I want to do it properly? That does me no good if I want to manually create a 500 MiB EFI partition, especially before installing Windows, instead of going with the EFI partition that Windows creates automatically because Windows will not create a Recovery partition unless I let it create the EFI partition automatically. Windows 11 creates a 100 MiB EFI partition automatically if there is no existing EFI partition and 100 MiB is not enough for som Linux distributions as some Linux distributions won’t install without creating a 500 MiB EFI partition.

 

[Tech Junky]

I run my server on Ubuntu and EFI only needs 50mb not 500 as a minimum and only takes up maybe 5mb of space.

The real question is how often are you in Windows? If it's not often then just make a VM and fire it up as needed. For this I use virtual box.

Windows is a throw away when it comes to preserving things as everything gets stored on the network anyway for me at least.

I would backup the / partition.
Wipe the disk
Install windows first if you want a true dual boot.
Go into gparted afterwards but before installing mint and resize things the way you want them.
Create a partition for your / to be copied to.
Copy the backup to it.
Mount the partition and EFI and run updaye-grub and you should be good to go.

Now the hitch here is running w10 & w11. Windows is dumb and you would need to finesse things with a custom install and allocate another partition to use for it. I tend to give windows 100gb max per install. It may reuse the same small partitions as w10 for boot/recovery. After both are installed then do the mint migration and grub update

 

[Tech Junky]

Another thing that comes to mind is....

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7QDO7M

You could install Windows to one of these as they show up as an SSD instead of a USB drive. Plug it in and run Windows as needed from it instead of installing on the internal drive. If you have Thunderbolt you could use the Acasis TB4 and an NVME for faster performance.

The SanDisk hits ~400MB/s but, the Acasis can do 3GB/2.8GB for speed. I use the Acasis with a SN770 for those speeds as other drives tend to be slower. The S770 runs about $100/TB and works great in the enclosure. It's also bootable as an OS drive including Windows.

 

[Dave3000]

Well Linux Mint is my primary OS but I use Windows 11 for some utilities and Flight Simulator and therefore a VM will not work for me in this case. I can still boot into Mint even if installing Windows 11 after installing Mint as long as I don’t delete the EFI partition during the Windows setup but the issue like I said was that the Recovery partition will not be created if I do it this way. I might want to go back to distro hopping in the future and Pop! OS is one of the distros that won’t install without at least a 500 MiB EFI partition.

 

[Tech Junky]

Well, then make it 500MB and go from there.

If your system supports more than 1 physical disk then use 2 disks and change boot options via UEFI instead.

nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 49M 0 part /boot/efi
└─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 931.5G 0 part /

 

[Dave3000]

Currently I have 1 250GB NVMe with Linux Mint and Windows 11 installed in their own partitions. The two EFI partitions (500 MiB created during Linux setup and a 100 MiB created by Windows setup) are on that drive as well, with Windows EFI files on the 100 MiB EFI partition and Linux EFI files on the 500 MiB EFI partition. I had to do some procedure using GParted do get Windows to create it's own EFI partition and ignore the existing EFI partition. I didn't want to share the 1st EFI partition with Windows because as I said if I do that, the 593 MiB Recovery partition will not be created automatically by Windows and I would have to create one manually after installing Windows if I want one. I have a Linux Games (ext4) partition and a Windows Games (NTFS) partition on my 2TB NVMe. I have a 2TB SATA SSD formatted in NTFS used as a shared data partition between the two operating systems.

If Windows 11 install didn't create a the 593 MiB Recovery partition does that mean Windows 11 did not install properly?

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok. That's a bit of a waste of drives but, if you're happy with it then great. Linux can read ntfs if your main concern is Windows. If you setup raid in the BIOS both systems would be able to read ext partitions. You seem to be hung up on the EFI though and Windows recovery. It's really not that complicated.

With 250gb if drive space for the os you have plenty of space for both. Then it's just a matter of storage for the files and games. Using the raid from UEFI though would give you 4tb of storage to use in either os. This would make better use of the drives. The only issues would then be backing them up to a drive that's 4tb or larger. And those are cheap.

 

[mxnerd]

Just use VM as suggested. I screwed up the partitions so many times with dual booting Windows + Linux

nvme drives are so fast that you won't notice big difference whether it's a VM.

Boot Windows and run Linux Mint as VM at full screen.

==

Oops, you play games. There will be GPU passthrough issues. But as I have suggested in another thread, have two sets of hardware in a machine and take advantage of the hardware passthrough technology.

The time zone will be modified by Linux every time you reboot. It's a pain to dual boot, really.

Or just use 2 disks.

 

[Dave3000]

Ok. That's a bit of a waste of drives but, if you're happy with it then great. Linux can read ntfs if your main concern is Windows. If you setup raid in the BIOS both systems would be able to read ext partitions. You seem to be hung up on the EFI though and Windows recovery. It's really not that complicated.

With 250gb if drive space for the os you have plenty of space for both. Then it's just a matter of storage for the files and games. Using the raid from UEFI though would give you 4tb of storage to use in either os. This would make better use of the drives. The only issues would then be backing them up to a drive that's 4tb or larger. And those are cheap.

One 2 TB SSD is a SATA and and the other 2 TB SSD is a NVMe, so I won't be able to raid them. Also I still prefer a single drive over a raid-0 even if I had two identical drives and I don't want the additional complexities that raid-0 brings, and besides just one Samsung 980 Pro almost is at the limit of the PCI-E 4.0x4 bandwidth anyways. I rather use each drive for a specific purpose, my 970 EVO 250 GB for the OS's, my 980 Pro 2 TB for my games, and my 850 EVO 2 TB for data such as program installers, driver installers, user folders, and a backup of my X-Plane installation and a backup of my MSFS packages folder. These are drives I accumulated over the years and didn't buy all at once. My main concern is: why Windows won't create a Recovery partition during installation if I manually created an EFI partition.

 

[Tech Junky]

Do you have a lot of stuff installed in Windows? If not get over the idea of recovery and just reinstall if it takes a dive. It takes 5 minutes to do.

 

[Dave3000]

Do you have a lot of stuff installed in Windows? If not get over the idea of recovery and just reinstall if it takes a dive. It takes 5 minutes to do.

It takes alot more than 5 minutes to install Windows if I include the time it takes to install the drivers after the operating system is installed. Also for some strange reason, the latest Windows 11 audio driver for my motherboard takes like 5 minutes to install. Also reinstalling MSFS can take over an hour even with the MSFS packages folder saved on the NVMe SSD as the 1st 1.1 GB of the download is required regardless if I saved the MSFS packages folder and it stays at 0% for a long time.

 

[Tech Junky]

Then do a fresh install w/ all of the crap installed and then make a clone copy of the system and save it somewhere and that's your "restore" fix. Drivers are a nuisance these days when the iGPU is a gigabyte in size. If it's a decent system CPU / RAM it shouldn't take that long to do.

Since your OS drive is only 256GB you could getaway with a SandDisk Extreme Pro for ~$60 and it will boot windows as well if you wanted to.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7QDO7M

If you want something more robust then go TB and carry your system in your pocket.

As to the drivers... I switched to using IOBit Driver Booster to manage them instead of Windows / Intel / NVIDIA. It seems to run a bit quicker and also DL'ing them to a storage folder instead of letting the automated install means you don't download them every time it alerts. WU / Intel tend to conflict with each other while WU says there's an update and then downgrades the driver then Intel complains there's an update ready to be installed. Disabling WU makes life simpler and IOB still picks up any driver needs. WU doesn't really tend to fix much these days like it used to 20+ yeas ago when they actually did something to improve the OS with updates.

If you get an alert for a WU patch then take the KB info and look to see what's changed and if it's worthwhile just DL from the catalog directly instead of letting WU do anything. There's also a lot of senseless updates that only apply to new features that don't apply to what you're using the HW for anyway. IOW verify things before bothering with updating them and save some time // reboots.

 

[crashtech]

I don't waste time trying to set up dual boot bootloaders. Just physically remove one drive at a time and install the OS on each as if it was all alone on the PC. Then replace the drives, and select which one you want to boot from by using the UEFI boot menu, typically F11 or F12 on boot. The OSes will leave each other alone, though Windows can get feisty and mess things up if you accidentally click through when it asks about the strange drive.

 

[Dave3000]

I don't waste time trying to set up dual boot bootloaders. Just physically remove one drive at a time and install the OS on each as if it was all alone on the PC. Then replace the drives, and select which one you want to boot from by using the UEFI boot menu, typically F11 or F12 on boot. The OSes will leave each other alone, though Windows can get feisty and mess things up if you accidentally click through when it asks about the strange drive.

I'm doing dual boot with a single drive with each OS in its own partition.

 

[crashtech]

I'm doing dual boot with a single drive with each OS in its own partition.

And it will likely never cease to be problematic, especially with the way Windows handles major updates. In my own view, buying a drive is way cheaper than my time and aggravation, and it permanently eliminates problems. But YMMV.

 

[Dave3000]

And it will likely never cease to be problematic, especially with the way Windows handles major updates. In my own view, buying a drive is way cheaper than my time and aggravation, and it permanently eliminates problems. But YMMV.

Even if I have a separate EFI partition for each OS installed ? If Windows did touch the EFI partition during a major update, wouldn't Windows just touch the EFI partition that it created during the Windows install and not the other EFI partition that was created during the Linux install? Is Windows capable of distinguishing which EFI partition is designated to Windows if there is more than one EFI partition on a single drive?

I also have a spare 500GB SATA SSD that's inside a USB enclosure right now that I can install in my PC and use that for the Windows boot drive and my 970 EVO 250 GB NVMe continue using just for the Linux boot drive.

 

[crashtech]

I'm sorry that I don't have good answers to your questions. My computer experience is fairly extensive, but much more practical than theoretical. Inevitably, for myself and for the customers I have worked for, using a software bootloader of any kind is simply much more prone to having problems than just having separate drives and using the BIOS or UEFI bootloader as a switch instead. So much so that I haven't supported or maintained software bootloader arrangements for many years now, the multiple drive model has taken over.

I'm really interested in what others have to say about this subject, but the last time I participated in a dual booting thread, as far as I can recall the general consensus was in favor of simply keeping the OSes ignorant of each other on separate drives.

 

[mxnerd]

Some videos on Youtube might help. I don't plan watching though.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=EFI+LINUX+WINDOWS

 

[crashtech]

...I don't plan watching though.

 

[mxnerd]

I'm totally on VM techs. Have no plan to deal with partitioning stuff between different systems. Have been burnt too many times.

 

[crashtech]

I'm totally on VM techs. Have no plan to deal with partitioning stuff between different systems. Have been burnt too many times.

Yeah, that's totally cool if you can't be bothered to help, and maybe your approach of posting a YouTube search result is actually more helpful than I have been here, but I still find it hilarious anyway.