Windows/Linux Dual Boot issue

Operating Systems & Open Source
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1

Hey everyone, I’ve got a weird boot issue and was wondering if you could give me some ideas.

I decided to try dual booting on my PC so I could experiment with Linux.

My basic configuration is I have two M.2 SSDs installed. One of them runs Windows 11, the other runs Linux Mint.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s refer to the Windows 11 SSD as “SSD-1” and Linux Mint as “SSD-2”

When I removed SSD-2 and restarted my PC, it wouldn’t boot. I forget the exact message that appeared after I powered on my PC, but it said something to the effect of there not being a bootable drive.

A couple questions I have :

  1. When I initially installed Windows 11, is it possible there were some partitions that should have been installed on SSD-1 and were somehow put on SSD-2 by accident? Hence the inability for Windows 11 to boot if SSD-2 isn’t present?
  2. If the above question is “Yes”, is it possible to use Windows recovery or some other method to get the proper configuration put in place?

I want to put SSD-2 in a different computer I bought recently because I indent to use as a dedicated Linux PC.

2

  1. Check in your BIOS/UEFI that SSD1 is set at primary with the Windows bootloader.

  2. If that doesn’t work, you will need to re-install the Windows 11 bootloader, there are plenty of guides online that will guide you on how to do it.

3

When you installed Linux, was SSD 1/the Windows SSD installed at the same time as SSD 2/the Linux SSD?