Hey guys I have a major problem here hopefully someone can help with. I have an Asus WRX80 Pro SAGE SE-Wifi with a 3955WX in it. I had a windows 10 install running fine for months but I couldn’t get a Linux OS to install. As part of my troubleshooting attempts I selected some of the non-default ISO flashing settings on Rufus like GPT and UEFI. I finally got a Linux install running but it turned out to be I needed safe graphics is all. I didn’t need to do any of the Rufus tweaks. However, it seems that the Rufus tweaks have broken my Windows install. Now my UEFI doesn’t see the boot option for Windows at all. I know it’s still there because I can see it from the Linux boot. I didn’t overwrite it. I have tried all Compatibility Support Module options but to no avail. Then I was able to get into a Windows USB environment but startup repair failed so I tried the CMD boot fix options bootec /fixboot bootrec/fixmbr and all of that and none of it worked. In fact that broke my Linux install and now I can’t even get into the Linux boot. I can’t even install a new Linux OS. My current one was a Xubuntu root on ZFS and it hangs booting on “failed to import rpool.” Both OSes are backed up to an imported zpool so I’m happy to go nuclear on both drives if it just gets me into something I can even restore to. When I try to boot the same Xubuntu USB I used before none of my USBs work. I have 4 different keyboards I have tried and none of them work. Sorry I know that wasn’t the most linear explanation but the situation really is a mess and I have no idea where to go from here. I have also restored UEFI to defaults and back in every combination and none of it changed anything. This has to be an EFI/GPT/MBR issue right? Hopefully some of you may know where to go from here. Thanks in advance
I’m gunna take a guess and say that you may have nuked your secure boot keys from the uefi…
I don’t think I even had any of that enabled?? It was Windows 10 not 11 and why would that make the boot option missing and the USBs fail on the live environment?
It’s a theory based on the order of events. If secure boot was enabled for your Windows install then you tried and tried to get Linux running and finally did, then the most likely scenario is that secure boot was preventing you from boot loading another os (linux). If you then either turned off secure boot or erased the boot keys then you could have lost the ability to boot from Windows because it won’t recognize it for security reasons.
Another possibility, Are both OSs on the same disk? if they are, did you accidentally erase one of the Windows partitions (recovery, EFI, MSR,Windows) when you were partitioning the disk?
I’m throwing out ideas in hopes that it helps you further troubleshoot. You have admittedly changed quite a few settings in the process so it’s hard to determine what has specifically happened to your system and what state it’s in.
I think the EFI or MSR partition was on the Linux disk and I overwrote that. But I definitely still have both disks with the OS themselves on them. How would I reinstall it then and why does the Windows USB suddenly not see any disks and tell me I have no drivers?
Not quite sure on both of those questions. However, identifying the root cause is usually the first step in solving your problem. Do you have fresh drive that you can swap in? I don’t know if it would work, but I might try reloading windows to a new drive and then attempt to somehow restore your backup copy from your zpool to the disk without interfering with the other partitions that the windows install creates. Don’t know if this will work. It’s been so long since I’ve troubleshot specific windows issues and I moved to Linux because of all the weird shit that windows was starting to do when 10 came around.
Go download clonezilla and do a disk to disk copy if you have backups on other disks. Watch the sector or clustee size for your large NTFS paetition and make sure it is at least 4096 bytes. The smaller partitions at 512 is fine, but not for booting windowz, it will wear out yoyr solid atate media and be slower, same goes for hard disk, and you’ll hear it chugging louder with smaller sector sizes.
I used it today to update my w10 ssd copy, works well, takes about an hour.