[DESKTOP] Windows Take Over

[JoHubb]

I've been running a triple boot set up for several years. Kubuntu (updated from 18.04), Mint, and Windows 10. Most of the time the system runs smoothly with only a very few hiccups.

Yesterday, I was working in Photoshop in Windows 10. When I finished and re-booted, instead of getting the usual grub menu, the machine went straight into Windows 10.

I tried re-setting the UEFI boot sequence but it would not let me. As soon as I moved the Windows boot down the list, the UEFI BIOS froze.
Re-setting the Boot order in WIndows 10 also failed. This time, I did not get Windows, just a black screen after the initial Post.

To cut a long story short, I booted in with a live USB (Kubuntu 20.04) and used Boot-Repair Option 2 here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

I was sceptical, but it has worked a dream, so far.

Now, I'd be grateful for advice on how to avoid the problem recurring?

[Don B. Cilly]

Have you tried rEFInd? As a boot manager I mean.
It's not without its glitches and peculiarities, but to me, compared to grub, it's a dream come true :-)

[verndog]

I have never had an issue like that. I've been running quad-boot for a long time now.
You might check 'efibootmgr' to see any telltale signs.

[JoHubb]

Have you tried rEFInd? As a boot manager I mean.
It's not without its glitches and peculiarities, but to me, compared to grub, it's a dream come true :-)

I've read through some of Rod Smith's material on his website. It's a bit indigestible for an ordinary non-whizz like me. In what ways is rEFind be an improvement over grub for the ordinary user?

[JoHubb]

I have never had an issue like that. I've been running quad-boot for a long time now.
You might check 'efibootmgr' to see any telltale signs.

That looks interesting. Simple in principle at least.

Can I ask if you fellas use Secure or Non-Secure Boot? Could it be a factor in my PCs misbehaviour? I have Fast Boot disabled.

[Don B. Cilly]

In what ways is rEFind be an improvement over grub for the ordinary user?

To an ordinary user like me, mainly in the way that it just works, reliably, all the time. I have eight bootable distros on this machine.
It's also very simple to configure. You could try it. Just
sudo apt install refind
and tell your BIOS to use that. If you don't like it, just tell it to use grub again.

[JoHubb]

To an ordinary user like me, mainly in the way that it just works, reliably, all the time. I have eight bootable distros on this machine.
It's also very simple to configure. You could try it. Just
sudo apt install refind
and tell your BIOS to use that. If you don't like it, just tell it to use grub again.

Thanks, Don, but, messages like this bring me out in a cold sweat. I answered 'No' because 'Fools (like me) rush in where angels fear to tread' (Alexander Pope, 1711).

Thankfully, grub still works.



There's a lot more to rEFind than just an alternative to grub.
http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

[Don B. Cilly]

But of course it wants to put it on the EFI partition. It's an EFI boot manager. It doesn't touch any other bootloaders, though.

~$ ll /boot/efi/EFI
total 2.3M
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root  512 Jan  8 12:17 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root  512 Jan  1  1970 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  512 Jun 28  2020 BOOT/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  512 Jan  8 12:16 Garuda/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  512 Jun 28  2020 neon/
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root  512 Jan 25 16:49 refind/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  512 May 14  2020 tools/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  512 Jun 28  2020 ubuntu/

[EDIT]

~$ efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 2 seconds
BootOrder: 0001,0000,0004,0002
Boot0000* neon
Boot0001* rEFInd Boot Manager
Boot0002* ubuntu
Boot0004* Hard Drive

[verndog]

That looks interesting. Simple in principle at least.

Can I ask if you fellas use Secure or Non-Secure Boot? Could it be a factor in my PCs misbehaviour? I have Fast Boot disabled.

I have Secure Boot disabled, no fast boot.
What I don't understand is Windows in your case updated its boot. I don't see Photoshop being involved. Can you look back on your Windows updates and see any activity at the time in question.
Mine gets updated daily. No restrictions.

[JoHubb]

I have Secure Boot disabled, no fast boot.
What I don't understand is Windows in your case updated its boot. I don't see Photoshop being involved. Can you look back on your Windows updates and see any activity at the time in question.
Mine gets updated daily. No restrictions.

To use Photoshop I had to use W10. When I had finished the task, I tried to re-boot into Kubuntu. I couldn't, W10 just kept on booting.

I checked updates and there were five just around the same time I was using Windows. My guess is that I logged out of W10 in the middle of one of these invisible automatic updates. This evening when I booted W10 for the first time since the boot repair, the screen message told me an update was 30% complete and not to switch off, etc.

Automatic updates are now disabled as is Secure Boot. Hopefully these will prevent a recurrence.

Thanks for the suggestion, verndog,

[JoHubb]

I spoke too soon.

When I tried to reboot into Kubuntu after the maneouvres above in W10, there I was straight back in W10, no grub menu, nothin'! Grr,

Thankfully, this time UEFI played ball and allowed me to change the boot order.

Something in W10 is obviously over-riding the Linux grub menu.

Does anyone know if efibootmgr and rEFind are immune to Microsoft interference?

[JoHubb]

I spoke too soon.

When I tried to reboot into Kubuntu after the maneouvres above in W10, there I was straight back in W10, no grub menu, nothin'! Grr,

Thankfully, this time UEFI played ball and allowed me to change the boot order.

Something in W10 is obviously over-riding the Linux grub menu.

Does anyone know if efibootmgr and rEFind are immune to Microsoft interference?

[JoHubb]

I spoke too soon. When I re-started from W10, the boot routine brought me straight back to W10, no grub menu.

This is the output from efibootmgr:

[JoHubb]

[JoHubb]

Back to square one. After a W10 update, the PC bypass grub completely and loads W10.

ReFind has disappeared from the UEFI boot list. It had been there before. There is now no Linux boot option in UEFI.

I'd be grateful for advice.