Problem : dual boot Debian jessie + windows10-1709 [SOLVED]

[Spock]

Hi,


I have a problem with Windows10-1709 (a.k.a. "Fall Creators Update") installation on a dual boot machine with Debian jessie.

My dual boot configuration was set up in 2014 with Windows8.

Then I upgraded to Win8.1, Win10, [...] and recently to Win10-1703 (Creators Update). Everything was working fine with Windows (I had to repair grub a few times, but this is just a "normal operation" for a linux user that uses dual boot ).

But when I upgraded to Win10-1709 (Fall Creators Update) few days ago, the upgrade process crashed at the very end.

I have checked my hard disk with smartctl (long test), everything is fine.

Then I decided to re-install windows from a ISO image (Win10_1709_FrenchCanadian_x64.iso), freshly downloaded from the Microsoft website. The installation from the CD image was going well, until the very end (just before the first reboot) where I got a blue screen with "KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED". One should note that I have not modified my EFI partition before starting to install windows.

So I decided to wipe all "windows remains" from my hard disk and start with a new EFI partition:
- deleted "microsoft reserved partition"
- deleted old system partition (over which I tried to re-installed windows with the ISO image)
- deleted Windows Restore partition
- created a blank ntfs partition with the resulting free space
- reformatted my /dev/sda1 EFI partition (fat32)
- reinstalled grub with SystemRescueCD (with chroot, grub-install and update-grub, secure boot is disabled in the EFI settings)
- updated /etc/fstab for the boot partition (since I have a new UUID)

and my Debian installation still boots and works fine. My EFI partition now only contains one file: /boot/efi/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi

At that point, it's like if I had a linux-only installation and I wanted to add Windows. I should be able to follow this simple procedure:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/question ... -installed

However, when I started to install windows from the same ISO image, I got the same blue screen as before, but this time at the very beginning of the installation.

It's like if Windows10-1709 is not able to handle a pre-existing EFI partiton !

For my next test, I will try to re-fromat my EFI partition in fat32 without reinstalling grub, but I would like to know your comments/advices about this problem. I know this is a problem with Windows, not debian, but it could affect other dual-boot users.


Thank you in advance

[p.H]

Just a couple of notes :

- Windows requires a "Microsoft Reserved Partition" when installed on a GPT disk (in EFI mode). So creating an NTFS partition using all the disk space may not please the Windows installer. My advice is to leave the disk space unallocated and allocate the space the during the Windows installation.

- There can be multiple EFI system partitions on a disk. So you could create one for Debian and leave the Windows installer create another one for Windows. If you install Windows after Debian, change the partition type so that Windows does not see it as an EFI system partition and does not try to use it.

[Spock]

Update:

I still don't know why the update to Windows10-1709 failed (while other updates in the past worked flawlessly), but I realized that I have not removed all "windows remains". Indeed, even if I have cleaned the EFI partition, I have not removed some extra boot entries with efibootmgr:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/zes ... mgr.8.html

It's perhaps the cause of the blue screens during windows re-installation.

Stay tuned for the next update

[Spock]

Update :

I cleaned the extra entries with efibootmgr. Now I have :

Code: Select all

user@computer:~$ sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000
Boot0000* debian        HD(1,800,c8000,eff6cd63-0607-4500-b123-6b6c454a32e2)File(\EFI\debian\grubx64.efi)

Then I tried to re-install windows with the same DVD image. It still crashes at the beginning of the installation.

I tried to install Windows in an empty ntfs partition and also in an unallocated empty space, but the result is the same : the installation crashed at the very beginning (I saw something like "copying files, 0%" in a list of installation steps). For my second attempt with an empty space, the windows installation CD had the time to create the "Microsoft reserved partition" and an empty ntfs partion before crashing.

Any other ideas?

[Dai_trying]

When I last re-installed Win10 I removed all the windows partitions (including EFI boot) and just left my debian partition there, next I installed Win 10 via the downloadable installer (if you don't use the correct version it may cause problems but I don't know in what form they will take) using the "free space" on the HDD which created all partitions (efi boot/rescue/system) and then, upon successful installation, chroot from live-cd to Debian in order to install grub and then I was back with a clean Win10 and untouched Debian installation.
It can be difficult to diagnose what the problem with Win10 installation is but if you were using the wrong iso image I would have expected a license issue when you tried to boot.
When I downloaded the iso from m$ I did it directly to my usb device although I don't expect this would cause the issue but I thought it worth mentioning.

[Spock]

A similar problem :
https://www.linuxquestions.org/question ... ost5771949

I'll try to re-install windows by removing my previous EFI partition. If successful, I'll make a second EFI partition for Debian, to avoid future conflicts.

Stay tuned for the next update.

[p.H]

You do not have to delete the existing EFI partition which contains the GRUB core image. You can just change its type GUID (e.g. into Linux data) so that Windows does not see it as an EFI partition and does not try to use it.

[Spock]

I did this :

1. Created a new EFI partition for my Debian installation
2. Removed the old EFI partition and other Windows system partition (MS reserved, restore, C:, etc)
3. Removed all EFI entries with efibootmgr
4. Reinstalled grub on the new EFI partition
5. Tested Debian : it works well as expected with the new EFI partition
6. Booted with SystemRescueCD
7. Removed the boot flags of my new EFI partition to change it into a data partition
8. Removed the debian/grub EFI entry with efibootmgr
==> at this point, I have only :
-----> data partitions an the end of the disk (no more partition with boot flags)
-----> no entries with efibootmgr,
-----> a single block of empty space at the beginning of the disk
9. Booting the Windows10-1709 CD to install windows
==> It still crashes at the beginning of the installation (blue screen, KMODE EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED). (I saw something like "copying files, 0%" in a list of installation steps just before the crash)
==> I have now four new Windows partitions, but no new entry for Windows with efibootmgr

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/sda: 3907029168 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): .....
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907029134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2157 sectors (1.1 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1023999   499.0 MiB   2700  Basic data partition
   2         1024000         1228799   100.0 MiB   EF00  EFI system partition
   3         1228800         1261567   16.0 MiB    0C01  Microsoft reserved ...
   4         1261568       308283391   146.4 GiB   0700  Basic data partition
...

Code: Select all

efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0001
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0001
Boot0001* UEFI: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GH24NSB0    PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1f,0x2)/Sata(1,65535,0)/CDROM(1,0x4b,0xb40)..BO

10. Booted with SystemRescueCD, chroot to re-install grub on my new EFI partition
==> Debian is back and works well.

Code: Select all

BootCurrent: 0000
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0000
Boot0000* debian        HD(8,d3328800,c8000,ec08e5db-8a46-47ae-a49d-b4d6905aff0e)File(\EFI\debian\grubx64.efi)

[Spock]

Next steps :
- look at boot repair options using Windows tools. Ex : https://www.easeus.com/partition-manage ... html#part4
- try to install Win8.0 with my old Win8 CD (three years old...) or find an ISO image of a previous Windows10 distrib. (ex : 1703), just to see if it works without crashing
- update motherboard firmware?

Other ideas?

[p.H]

Suggestions :
- Check the Windows installation media.
- Check the disk with badblocks in read-write mode or use another disk.
- Install Windows first without any Linux partition.
- Wipe the GPT label (not just delete all partitions) and install Windows first.

[Spock]

SOLVED by updating the firmware of my motherboard (ASUS H87M-E).

My hypothesis is that some UEFI parameters were corrupted, causing windows update/re-installation to crash with a blue screen but having no effect on grub2/Linux/Debian.

The update of the firmware also resets the UEFI parameters.