Can't boot into WIn10 on Dual Boot.

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Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:12 pm

I have an issue that I hope the experts on the board can help me solve.

First, let me apologize in advance. This is not specifically Gentoo-related but rather is the result of my flubbing an attempt to install Gentoo. Hopefully, after the requisite amount of well-deserved criticism, I can get some help. LOL

Also, it is a rather lengthy post because I think it better to give too much information rather than not enough.

The short version is that I have a Win 10 Laptop that I wanted to use as a dual-boot Win10/Gentoo box. I used an Ubuntu LiveUSB to attempt the install. Now I can not boot into, repair, or rescue the Win 10 partition. I am trying to recover the Win partition and install Gentoo.

The long version:

In the past, I've successfully installed Gentoo via SysRecueCD. It always got the job done painlessly. However, after reading a lengthy thread on the forum about the changes made to it I was spooked and decided to attempt using another distro as a LiveUSB to accomplish the same. Mistake number 1.

I was doing the install in stages because of the time required in my previous install. I wanted to do it in manageable chunks.

First I shrunk the Win 10 partition from full disk to a little less than 300GB. This is a 1TB SSD disk. The remaining 700 GB I left un-allocated and un-formatted for the time being. For what it is worth I did this from the Win 10 side of things but I had no issues after this step.

Next, I booted from the LiveUSB to partition, format, and allocate the remaining disk space in preparation for the Gentoo install. I did this in GParted and let Ubuntu auto-allocate. It split it into 300GB/300GB. It was my plan to chunk up one of the 300GB partitions and install Gentoo on it.

However, when rebooting I was taken to the Win10 Auto-repair dialogue. Which fails. Can't reset, recover, or rescue either.

I've discovered a couple of things while trying to recover the Win 10 OS which may or may not be related.

1) The laptop is using Optane. I actually asked about this in a previous thread and was under the impression that Linux could handle this. Anyway, there is a small 27GB SSD that I assume accommodates this. When I check in the BIOS...

[Intel (R) RST 17.5.5.4401 RAID Driver

Optane Volume :
Incomplete Optane Volume

Non-RAID PhysicaI Disks :
TG 4 .O , INTEL HBRPEKNX0203AH TE917405KV1POC-1 , 953 . 8GB

OPTANE VOLUME INFO
TG 5.0, INTEL HBRPEKNX0203AHO TE917405KV1POC-2, 27.2GB
Unallocated

Reset to non-Octane

"WARNING! This disk is detected as 1 of the 2 disks paired in an Optane volume.

Before proceeding it is recommended that you recombine this disk with its partner disk if possible. Only proceed if you intend to delete all the data on BOTH disks. If you continue to reset this disk to non-Optane without recommended recombination, you will not only delete all the data on this disk but you must also reset its optane parter disk which will delete all the data on that dick too. Are you sure you want to continue?" "Yes or No"]

I don't know if this is what is creating the issue with Win10 but at the very least it is an issue that was created and I assume one I would have had to deal with anyway when installing Gentoo?

2) The Win10 Partition is encrypted. Or as best I can tell some part of it is because I can mount and back up almost everything in that partition. I say "almost everything" because I just don't see any of the User directories/files. However, when I look in the partition manager I see the entire 200+ GB intact. My Google-Fu indicates that Win10 is using Bitlocker for encryption but when I check the Windows login account it has no key for that account. So maybe I am incorrect about the encryption. I am out of my depth on this one.

3) I was using my YubiKey to log in to my account but all of the research I have done on the Yubico site and forums indicates that the key is NOT being used for the disk encryption in any way.

So my hope is that...

I can rescue/find a way to boot back into the Win 10 part.
I did back up the Windows stuff by mounting in Linux and copying to an external media...but I don't know if it grabbed everything. My guess is that it didn't because if I check it with df I get

Code: Select all

/dev/nvme0n1p3   91G   19G   73G  21% /media/spectre360/Windows

which is a lot less than what it is and what disk manager is showing

Code: Select all

289 GB — 77 GB free (73.2% full)

. I also have no obvious way to decrypt it because I don't know how Win 10 was doing it. It came that way when I purchased the laptop.

I can't imagine that the data is gone but if it really is unrecoverable then I would like to install Gentoo on the entire disk but need to understand how to use Optane and its separate SSD?

My apologies if the post is a little confusing but it is because I am confused.

On another forum it was suggested I use a Boot Repair utility to generate a report, I've attached that as well. It does not see a Win 10 OS...if I am reading it correctly.

https://pastebin.com/naavHthU

Additionally, I've attached the Pastebin with some details about my box. This was its state before I started trying to partition/install.

https://pastebin.com/Y5mxWR2q

Irre · Post by **Irre** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 4:48 pm

Maybe you can try grub2win to let windows load grub and linux.

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:19 pm

Irre wrote:Maybe you can try grub2win to let windows load grub and linux.

Thanks for the assistance.

Currently, Grub2 can see the Win10 partition and OS. But on the Win10 side, it seems totally "borked" for lack of a better term.

Do you think grub2win might help that or is it just another way for the bootloader to see both OS's but from the Windows side?

Goverp · Post by **Goverp** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:30 pm

A brief look at the Intel publicity makes me wonder if they've partitioned an M2 NVMe drive into a RAID 1 setup.

The support page at https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/ ... emory.html looks scary, though IIUC it's about VST (whatever that is) rather than Optane.

That's probably no help!

This page looks like it might help:
https://www.codenotary.com/blog/ubuntu- ... d-caching/

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:32 pm

Some more info...

There are some new things on this laptop that I didn't have to deal with in previous installations of Gentoo.

Optane, which I previously pointed out.

The disk(s) are SSD.

It is a UEFI Bios.

And it uses "Secure Boot".

I've also had some returns when searching Google that TPM can sometimes not play nice with dual boot boxes?

I am really out of my depth here. Before I go too far down the rabbit hole, all I had done up to the point of encountering the problem was partition the disk.

That and the fact that now Optane is showing as unpaired leads me to believe that this is the root cause. Somehow/Someway Win 10 was dependent on Optane and that is borked so it can't boot or recover. Or somehow some part of the disk was partitioned that was pointing to the encrypted data on that partition. I am grabbing at straws.

At this point, if I can just recover my data...either by being able to successfully boot into the Windows partition...or by finding a way to capture the entire partition when mounting and backing up...then figuring out how to decrypt it...I will gladly just install Gentoo on the entire disk since clearly it doesn't want to play nicely dual booting Win10/Gentoo as my previous laptop did. But I would still have to deal with Optane issue/SSD?

If it turns out that the data on that partition is 100 percent unrecoverable it would suck but would stop spinning my wheels and just use the entire disk for Gentoo.

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Wed Jul 14, 2021 6:34 pm

Goverp wrote:A brief look at the Intel publicity makes me wonder if they've partitioned an M2 NVMe drive into a RAID 1 setup.

The support page at https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/ ... emory.html looks scary, though IIUC it's about VST (whatever that is) rather than Optane.

That's probably no help!

This page looks like it might help:
https://www.codenotary.com/blog/ubuntu- ... d-caching/

This what I am starting to think as well. In the BIOS menu for Optane, it actually does say the 27GB SSD is a RAID volume and is prompting me to reassociate it with the main SSD disk.

Looking at your links now. Much appreciated.

Irre · Post by **Irre** » Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:14 am

Budoka wrote:Do you think grub2win might help that or is it just another way for the bootloader to see both OS's but from the Windows side?

grub2win loads grub via the windows bootloader, I think. I tested it under Virtual Box. It worked fine. I got a menu where I could choose between Windows10 and a Linux system.

(In real life i still run grub0 and LILO)

Budoka · Post by **Budoka** » Fri Jul 16, 2021 7:19 pm

Irre wrote:
Budoka wrote:Do you think grub2win might help that or is it just another way for the bootloader to see both OS's but from the Windows side?
grub2win loads grub via the windows bootloader, I think. I tested it under Virtual Box. It worked fine. I got a menu where I could choose between Windows10 and a Linux system.

(In real life i still run grub0 and LILO)

I really appreciate the assistance/suggestion. I will take a look at it but I don't have an issue getting into the bootloader and it allows me to choose either Win10 or Linux. It is once I boot into the Win10 Environment that I have issues.

I am starting to resign myself to the fact that this may be unrecoverable but I want to understand what exactly caused the issue so I can avoid it if I do a clean install.