So, I had to reinstall windows as a dualboot, because I need some CAD tools for work. It was painful but it’s not thebaubject

I’m running nixos with systemd-boot and I installed windows on another drive. I started to research how to add the entry on the boot list so I don’t need to go in bios to switch the boot order each time I want to change OS.

Most of the information I find is about grub on nixos but I finally find information on how to add a manual entry. On the Arch wiki I find some information but now I have to blend all that to make it work on my laptop.

It’s late and I’m scared to mess up my boot partition so I go to sleep to work instructions on it the next day.

The next day I’m ready to do all that only to realized that there is already the entry for windows is already in the boot menu, it has been added automatically.

So I spent all this time to think about how I while have to adjust my system manually only to realize that nixos already did it automatically for me.

  • r00ty@kbin.life
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, I was about to say when I read the first part. Adding windows manually is quite an old thing. Modern linux setups with grub2 will “find” the EFI loader for windows and add it automatically.

    I lost my grub loader when I upgraded hardware recently. But, I just booted into a linux USB, chroot (remembering to mount /boot/efi) and re-run grub install/grub update. That didn’t find windows. But, it was fine because I just properly booted into linux and ran grub-update again there, and it found it fine.

    • Joël de Bruijn
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      1 year ago

      I have sometimes the other way around: Grub keeps working fine but Win11 update reboots and looses the Bitlocker Key.

      Have it on my phone just in case and needed it six times now. Quite tedious to put it in but doable

      • r00ty@kbin.life
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        1 year ago

        Hmm, only bios/firmware updates are meant to do that. Some hardware changes will too. I mean, it’s what it’s there for.