Arch Linux

embmicro

Member

Registered: 2014-07-30

Posts: 26

[SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

I've been using a dual boot setup with Arch and Windows for years now. It has worked great until the last few weeks.

For whatever reason, now whenever Windows boots, it removes GRUB from being able to be booted. I've booted to a USB drive and reinstalled GRUB at least two dozen times now.

I thought maybe Windows was salty it didn't have the EFI partition to itself so today I physically removed my Linux drive and reinstalled Windows. After putting the drive back in, my bios show both Linux and Windows. After booting Windows (not even through GRUB, and with it being the top boot priority), GRUB is wiped. It no longer shows in the BIOS as a bootable device.

I've tried the trick I saw to make Windows be the priority boot but disable it with `efibootmgr` but it told me entry 0000 (Windows) couldn't be found when trying to disable it even though it lists it.

When booting a USB drive to reinstall GRUB, I ran `efibootmgr` and it doesn't list GRUB either. After reinstalling it does.

I've checked and fast boot is off in Windows (also ran the command to turn it off).

I'm seriously lost at what is causing this as it doesn't seem like a widespread issue.

Anyone have any ideas?

Last edited by embmicro (2025-03-10 20:14:23)

embmicro

Member

Registered: 2014-07-30

Posts: 26

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

After an enormous amount of headache I think I fixed the problem.

I'm pretty sure that it was caused by secure boot settings in the UEFI. Changing the mode to "User" from "Deployed" seems to have made it work again. This is weird given that secure boot is (and has always been) disabled.

Probably a "bug" from Gigabyte.

MAYBL8

Member

From: Florida USA

Registered: 2022-01-14

Posts: 386

Website

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

I'm having the same issue and I have mine in user mode.
Should I open a new post for my issue even though it is the same as this?

---

www.dccwebsite.com

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,104

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

@embmicro
thanks for reporting back
yes, could be a uefi bug - we had such in the past

@maybl8
please start your own topic as your problem although maybe related is likely different

embmicro

Member

Registered: 2014-07-30

Posts: 26

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

I'm actually not sure what made it work and it's only kind of fixed. I ended up having multiple GRUB installs. One with the windows bootloader and one with the Linux install. This was because I wanted to try setting grub as Window's bootloader using bcdedit and there wasn't enough space on windows partition for Linux. This didn't seem to work so I changed it back to the default but maybe that did something.

My working setup now has the grub on the Windows partition pointing to both Windows the the other GRUB install. When I went to simplify things and just use the Linux GRUB install, it got cleared from the bios options after booting.

Only thing I noticed is that the grub that stays is now entry 0000 in efibootmgr instead of 0002 (that's windows now somehow).

For whatever reason, that grub install has been persistent when everything else wasn't (isn't).

I'd be very curious if you found a solution.

If it's important, I have a Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master on the latest F16b bios.

NickAM1025

Member

Registered: 2025-08-09

Posts: 2

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

If it's important, I have a Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master on the latest F16b bios.

So I'm just chiming in to say I'm running into the same issue with or without secure boot enabled. Every time I boot into Windows, it breaks GRUB.
I also have a Gigabyte Motherboard, B650 AORUS ELITE AX.

What's weird is this was working fine up until recently. I have updated my bios, but only after this started being an issue.

It's driving me nuts.

Last edited by NickAM1025 (2025-08-15 18:36:07)

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 2,104

Re: [SOLVED] GRUB Entry Removed Every Time Windows Boots

@NickAM1025
in addition to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p2255507
please avoid full-quotes
also please open your own topic - even if your problem is related and maybe has a similar solution it's another issue specific to your setup
your post doesn't add to the current topic (neither did the linked one) and can be seen as hijacking when others start to discuss your issue rather than the original topic
thanks