Windows hijacks again

[JoHubb]

This thread is a follow up.

https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...dows-Take-Over

Briefly, triple boot set up, Kubuntu, Mint and W10.

Installed rEFind. This operated once or twice, and was listed in UEFI. Then, for whatever reason, it disappeared and the old grub menu appeared. Don't know why.

Yesterday, W10 updated. After that, no grub menu. Straight into W10. UEFI did not show ubuntu as before. Repeated power-ups with several hours delay between each, eventually produced 'ubuntu' in the UEFI list and I was able to move this to the top.

The distro did not load properly and I got an initramfs prompt. To cut a very long story short, I managed to get into Mint and updated it. Towards the end of the update, it did something to ubuntu - I cannot remember the script but I thought it was an odd happening. Mint (18.3) ran perfectly afterwards. I logged off overnight. I was scared to power off.

Today, I did a re-start. The standard grub menu appeared and Kubuntu loaded normally and is running normally so far.

I had so much trouble with this that I was sure the Kubuntu partition must have been damaged or corrupted. /dev/sda2. Seemingly not, as it all works normally now.

I am scared to power off this PC and come out of Kubuntu, in case there is a repeat performance.
What to do?

It seems Windows is determined to hijack this machine. I could uninstall W10 but I need it for one or two specific tasks.

Thanks for bearing with me.

[oshunluvr]

Well, I don't know your situation - computer-wise, but keeping Windows 10 in a VM is a much safer option. Alternately, dual drives with Windows alone on it's drive is another. I doubt Windows would "damage" your Linux installs but it may continue to interfere with your boot settings.

Assuming you are stuck with your current setup, I suggest you learn how to boot to recovery mode from Windows (or whatever they call it) and have a bootable USB stick handy that will allow you to boot to Linux from it.

[JoHubb]

Thanks. The VM option is certainly do-able and might be the best and easiest solution. I hadn't thought of it.

[Fred47]

I had the same thing happen with a W10 update, it wiped my Linux entry from the HP boot menu. I had to reinstall to get it back. Now I keep W10 on a separate laptop. The only problem is that I use it so little, every 6 months it seems, that the update process is now a 2 day affair with multiple reboots, which I just did.

[GreyGeek]

I had the same thing happen with a W10 update, it wiped my Linux entry from the HP boot menu. I had to reinstall to get it back. Now I keep W10 on a separate laptop. The only problem is that I use it so little, every 6 months it seems, that the update process is now a 2 day affair with multiple reboots, which I just did.

I kept up a dual boot environment for years after I retired in 2008, primarily because my employer asked if I would be available for consultation while retired. I kept that up but after 7 years I hadn't received any requests for help in quite a while. I would boot into Win7 and run updates every couple months. The last time I ran an update, after 3-4 months of non-use, the update informed me that over 100,000 updates were waiting to be installed. The number of reboots required was insane. Not having actually used the Win7 for anything in over a year I decided that it should go. Also, at the time, I decided to try BTRFS. So, I blew Win7 off my drive and gave it all to Kubuntu on BTRFS, and never looked back.

[oshunluvr]

Thanks. The VM option is certainly do-able and might be the best and easiest solution. I hadn't thought of it.

Yes. If you can do it software-wise (meaning some windows software will want direct access to hardware and may not work) it the best way to go. MS allows you to use your Windows install in a VM legally and even MS office will work just fine.

I reccommend using QEMU/KVM instead of Virtual Box. It's a but my time to set it up but it has much better performance in my experience and I think more usable. It's possible to set up hardware pass-through so programs can access the video card but I haven't tried that.

[JoHubb]

Thanks to all.

Last night I was in Kubuntu. I left it running on the desktop, had supper. When I came back - a black screen with an arrow cursor. Nothing would wake it, I had to do a soft re-start. Guess what? Straight into Windows 10. .
Shut down.

Booted up this morning. Checked UEFI - ubuntu at top. F10. Ten minutes later it opened in Windows.

I am so fed up with this that I'm going to uninstall Windows 10. If I need it again, I will start from scratch and install it as a VM. This is driving me crazy!

[JoHubb]

Now, nothing boots successfully. I fear my SSD has failed. The efi bootloader is on /dev/sdd2 .

I guess I start again. Thankfully, everything I need is backed up.

[jlittle]

I suggest you keep a bootable USB handy and become familiar with its use. Then, when Windows or grub causes trouble, you can fix it quickly without reinstalling. A USB with the Kubuntu installer will serve, if it has no trouble making an internet connection; but there are specialist set ups like systemrescuecd (which I've used a lot over the years, starting when it was an actual CD) and super grub2 disk (sic) (which is really small, and so boots really fast).
There's two places to know about:

1. The ESP (EFI system partition) is a partition like any other and can be backed up and restored. It's quite small so stashing a backup on the same drive somewhere and a USB stick is a good idea. Even backing up the "ubuntu" and windows directories to different names in the same ESP can be useful. Keeping notes about these backups is a good idea.
2. The UEFI non-volatile RAM variables, or NVRAM. These are on some memory on the motherboard that persists with the power off and all drives removed. Amongst a pile of obscure junk there are boot records, and a boot order. When windows does an update, it often changes the order to put its boot record first. There's a clunky command line programme in Linux called "efibootmgr"; if whatever tool you've booted with doesn't have it, it's quick to install it.

If windows hijacks your boot, it usually just means it has changed the NVRAM boot order. I can't remember what windows calls its boot entry, but Ubuntu call its one "ubuntu".

Assuming the windows one is called "windows" such a fix might go like this:

$ sudo apt install efibootmgr
$ sudo efibootmgr
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000,0001
Boot0000* windows
Boot0001* ubuntu
$ sudo efibootmgr -o 1,0

In principle, the UEFI firmware (press something, typically F1, F8, or Del, after powering on) can change the boot order but that way you're subject to the vagaries of buggy or confusing UEFI implementations. (My Gigabyte mobo sometimes gets totally lost and makes a mess of the boot entries.)
Things can be worse after a Windows install rather than just an update, but I don't think your windows did that.