Previous Windows 11 Installation Not Showing On GRUB

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hello all,

Complete beginner here. I have just installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed over a previous Windows 11 installation, yet GRUB does not show the Windows 11 installation on the boot menu, so I seemingly have no way to get back into it. I was hoping for any help clearing up this issue, and have posted as much information as I can find below:

Note: os-prober and update-grub do not work, and zypper can’t find an install for them, nor the cnf command.
Note: BIOS is set to Legacy+UEFI, if I set only to UEFI GRUB doesn’t load and it only loads straight back into BIOS.

fdisk -l
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 931.51 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 82973677-4F74-4AC1-A189-49D9889406F3

Device **** Start** End**** Sectors**** Size****Type**
/dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 1085439 1083392 529M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p2 1085440 1288191 202752 99M EFI System
/dev/nvme0n1p3 1288192 1320959 32768 16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/nvme0n1p4 1320960 1874722815 1873401856 893.3G Microsoft basic data
/dev/nvme0n1p5 1952331776 1953521663 1189888 581M Windows recovery environment
/dev/nvme0n1p6 1874722816 1874731007 8192 4M BIOS boot
/dev/nvme0n1p7 1874731008 1952331775 77600768 37G Linux LVM

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

Disk /dev/sda: 15.04 GiB, 16148070400 bytes, 31539200 sectors
Disk model: UDisk
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xa5ce3db6

Device Boot Start** End**** Sectors**** SizeIdType**
/dev/sda1 * 2048 31539199 31537152 15G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 6703360 15831295 9127936 4.4G 0 Empty

Disk /dev/mapper/cr_nvme-Samsung_SSD_970_EVO_1TB_S5H9NC0MB12682E-part7: 37 GiB, 39729496064 bytes, 77596672 se
ctors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/mapper/system-root: 35 GiB, 37580963840 bytes, 73400320 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk /dev/mapper/system-swap: 2 GiB, 2147483648 bytes, 4194304 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

/etc/default/grub

RUB_TERMINAL=“gfxterm”

The resolution used on graphical terminal

#note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE

you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo’

GRUB_GFXMODE=“auto”

Uncomment if you don’t want GRUB to pass “root=UUID=xxx” parameter to Linux

GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

#Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries

GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=“true”

#Uncomment to get a beep at grub start

GRUB_INIT_TUNE=“480 440 1”

GRUB_BACKGROUND=
GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
SUSE_BTRFS_SNAPSHOT_BOOTING=“true”
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=“false”
GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=“y”
GRUB_CMDLINE_XEN_DEFAULT=“vga=gfx-1024x768x16”

lsblk

NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 1 15G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 1 15G 0 part
└─sda4 8:4 1 4.4G 0 part
nvme0n1 259:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 529M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 99M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 16M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 893.3G 0 part
├─nvme0n1p5 259:5 0 581M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p6 259:6 0 4M 0 part
└─nvme0n1p7 259:7 0 37G 0 part
└─cr_nvme-Samsung_SSD_970_EVO_1TB_S5H9NC0MB12682E-part7 254:0 0 37G 0 crypt
├─system-root 254:1 0 35G 0 lvm /var
│ /usr/local
│ /srv
│ /root
│ /opt
│ /home
│ /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi
│ /boot/grub2/i386-pc
│ /.snapshots
│ /
└─system-swap 254:2 0 2G 0 lvm [SWAP]

Again, any help would be greatly appreciated. Also as a sidenote, I would love to get involved with the open source community and learn more or develop simple programs for repos if anyone has any recommendations.

Thank you!

2

When you have installed it over the Windows 11, Windows 11 is gone.

You probably wanted to install alongside Windows 11. Maybe you have done that.

I see you are new here (welcome to the openSUSE forums), thus you will not have found this:
There is an important, but not easy to find feature on the forums.

Please in the future use CODE tags around copied/pasted computer text in a post. It is the # button in the tool bar of the post editor. When applicable copy/paste complete, that is including the prompt, the command, the output and the next prompt.

An example is here: Using CODE tags Around your paste.

And to try out this, please post

lsblk -f

It will give a better idea about what the partitions are used for.

3

It is not quite clear to me what you tell about UEFI boot or not, but you should only use one of Legacy or UEFI and not mix. That is for Windows (which was already there, thus that decides for all), booting the installation medium and for the resultng openSUSE installation.

4

Show full output of “ls -lR /boot/efi”

5

The output of ls -lR /boot/efi is:

ls: cannot access '/boot/efi': No such file or directory

I forget which options I selected during the install, but it was to auto-resize the Windows partition, not the delete option. At this point could should I try to partition the current drive, or would it be better to reinstall Windows, and then OpenSUSE over it again?

6

First, please include that command within the CODE tags. It is there, just to be copied/pasted with the output all together. Why taking the trouble to type it outside the CODE tags, which is asking for typos to be made. :frowning:

Then, when you have no /boot/efi, you probably do have no EFI booted openSUSE. That then does not go with an UEFI booted Windows. You probably booted the installation medium (what did you use?) in Legacy mode.

And more was asked from you. Where is it?

7

Hi
So windows is installed in UEFI mode, openSUSE installed as Legacy (nvme0n1p6 BIOS Boot). You need to ensure openSUSE boots in UEFI mode on your system and make sure you select expert partitioning to remove that partition and setup for the openSUSE re-install. No need to re-install windows, the openSUSE install may complain about the size of the efi partition, but should be fine with 100MB.

8

To ensure you boot the openSUSE media in UEFI mode, simply disabling legacy booting, by whatever name your BIOS calls it, possibly MBR or CSM, should be enough. If it’s not enough, indicated by F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 menu keys across the bottom of the screen, then discover your BBS hotkey, and use it to bring up the BBS menu. There you should see the openSUSE USB media listed separately, with and without the string UEFI. Choose that with UEFI. Common hotkeys:

  • ASRock F11
  • Asus F8
  • Biostar F9?
  • Dell F12
  • eCS F10
  • eMachines F10
  • EVGA F7
  • Gigabyte F12
  • HP F9 or ESC or ESC,F9
  • Lenovo F12 or F8 or F10
  • MSI F11
    *]Toshiba F12