After installing MX23.6 Windows is missing in the dual boot menu [Solved]

[fehlix]

I have done a new USB Boot stick with the Ventoy tool on another computer and I could successfully boot with that stick.
After booting with the MX LiveUSB stick I select Boot Rescue and then "Boot Rescue Menus".
Then I have the following options:
a. GRUB EFI bootloader
b. GRUB menus
c. Frugual menus
d. Windows bootloader
e. Reboot
f. Power Off
g. Reboot into BIOS/UEFI Setup

After choosing the d option, I get the message "No Windows bootloader found."

Any idea what I can do next?
Thanx in advance for your help!

First question, when you select find "a GRUB EFI bootloader", will it find "MX Linux" efi's and would it boot into MX,
This is just to make sure your Ventoy setup works?

Next, let's see what the ESP and UEFI-NVRAM looks like.
Boot normally into the installed MX Linux:
Now run below commands which gives terminal text output.
Do copy the commands and the text output and paste here in the form within code-block tags like this example looks like: [code]paste text here[/code].
And do paste for each command + text output separately:

Open terminal as normal user:
First post again slightly modified partition layout including part-uuid:

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lsblk -f -o +PART_UUID

Next, have a look into the NVRAM to get the UEFI entries:

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efibootmgr -v

both above may help to see what's wrong.

Now the command to see the efi-files on the ESP:

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find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi" -ls

Maybe there is something out of order with the win-efi files.

[noursle]

Good evening fehlix,

Here are the results of the commands:

a)

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lsblk -f -o +PARTUUID:

NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL     UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS          PARTUUID
sda                                                                                                    
├─sda1 ntfs         Recovery  FE2E65C92E657B91                                                         560c699d-e32e-45bd-a10d-5bdd8cd56162
├─sda2 vfat   FAT32           EC68-67B7                              69.2M    27% /boot/efi            9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b
├─sda3                                                                                                 f17c2b06-5462-4fff-8931-f3aa4f0c96af
├─sda4 ntfs                   01DB7554AE6D6870                       51.6G    71% /media/sdb4          de998887-7dd1-4ff1-9e24-4a89566b0cdb
├─sda5 ext4   1.0   rootMX23  a18f6be3-6b86-4ef3-9698-4f2e19d4783a  145.1G    16% /                    c1e77a0d-213a-4128-943f-131559c5d234
└─sda6 ext4   1.0             b160a8ba-9bb6-43d6-b6cb-3f60fef53b52   23.7G    64% /home                9fd517b9-0385-4c14-8d5e-0a8f4c88e6dd
sdb                                                                                                    
├─sdb1 ntfs         Data      8C583E09583DF296                                                         af27cef9-bdfe-4782-a9ea-f2dfaa6805b6
└─sdb2 ntfs         Hörbücher 440E44140E440182                                                         a3f0afae-0762-40b4-93bc-a5e3d7f2b8b9
sdc                                                                                                    
├─sdc1 ntfs         PQSERVICE 06F40C7C16D9B5D2                                                         bc89c148-01
├─sdc2 ntfs         ACER      5A78B4D178B4ACDF                                                         bc89c148-02
└─sdc3 ntfs         DATA      7E787AC6787A7CA9                       24.8G    89% /media/marcelix/DATA bc89c148-03
sdd                                                                                                    
sr0                      

b)

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efibootmgr -v:

BootCurrent: 0004
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0004,0000,0002,0003,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager	HD(2,GPT,9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b,0x109000,0x31800)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...,................
Boot0001* MX Linux	HD(2,GPT,9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b,0x109000,0x31800)/File(\EFI\MX\GRUBX64.EFI)
Boot0002* UEFI OS	HD(2,GPT,9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b,0x109000,0x31800)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0003* MX23	HD(2,GPT,9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b,0x109000,0x31800)/File(\EFI\MX23\GRUBX64.EFI)
Boot0004* UEFI: JetFlashTranscend 16GB 1.00	PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x10,0x1)/USB(0,0)/HD(2,GPT,9dfb82f9-b344-4e73-8b7e-4c3a4377b9d5,0x1d60fd8,0x10000)..BO

c)

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 <find /boot/efi -iname "*.efi" -ls:

      176    159 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root       162192 Jan 26 11:43 /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/SecureBootRecovery.efi
find: ‘/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pl-PL’: Eingabe-/Ausgabefehler
find: ‘/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pt-BR’: Eingabe-/Ausgabefehler
      310   1344 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root      1376240 Jan 26 11:43 /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/memtest.efi
      318    136 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root       139264 Mai 31 19:54 /boot/efi/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
      321    136 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root       139264 Feb  2 10:49 /boot/efi/EFI/MX/grubx64.efi
      324    136 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root       139264 Mai 31 19:54 /boot/efi/EFI/MX23/grubx64.efi

[fehlix]

Good evening fehlix,

Hi.

So what about my first question within my last post?

Here are the results of the commands:

I'll have a look.

[noursle]

Hi had to reboot for answering your first question.
It looks like this:

====> EFI Bootloader <=====
boot @[fat] (hd1,2)/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
Boot @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
mx @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/mx23/grubx64.efi
mx23 @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/mx23/grubx64.efi
rootMX23 @[ext](hd3,5)/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/grub.efi

[noursle]

..and yes, if I select the last entry, the MX Boot menu appears and I boot from my harddrive...

[fehlix]

..and yes, if I select the last entry, the MX Boot menu appears and I boot from my harddrive...

OK, those 4 entries are related to the installed MX Linux::

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====> EFI Bootloader <=====
Boot     @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
mx       @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/mx23/grubx64.efi
mx23   @[fat] (hd3,2)/EFI/mx23/grubx64.efi
rootMX23 @[ext](hd3,5)/boot/grub/x86_64-efi/grub.efi

The last one is on the root-partition "rootMX23", which boots- so you have good fallback.
The other three are on the internal ESP on /dev/sda2.
Please try also all other three. This may help to give indication about the "health" of the ESP.
Do ignore the first entry :

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boot      @[fat] (hd1,2)/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi

, that's probably the ESP on the ventoy USB-stick.

[noursle]

With all three the MX Linux Boot menu appears, exactly as with the last one. I just booted from there my system...

[fehlix]

With all three the MX Linux Boot menu appears, exactly as with the last one. I just booted from there my system...

OK, mayb the ESP is not completely corrupt:
On the ESP the find command lists three efi files related to Windows and some input/output errrors:

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176    159 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root       162192 Jan 26 11:43 /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/SecureBootRecovery.efi
310   1344 -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root      1376240 Jan 26 11:43 /boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/memtest.efi
find: ‘/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pl-PL’: Eingabe-/Ausgabefehler
find: ‘/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/pt-BR’: Eingabe-/Ausgabefehler

But the efi-file bootmgfw.efi is missing. This bootmgfw.efi is needed to boot into windows, and would look on the esp like this:

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/boot/efi/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

indicated also within NVRAM entry as such::

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Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager	HD(2,GPT,9054db71-437d-40c1-954d-5551f76d817b,0x109000,0x31800)/File(\EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI)WINDOWS

So looks like somehow the ESP is corrupt.
To fix;
Boot a recent Windows or WInd Recovery DVD and naviagate within the DVD-Boot menu to the place
where you can re-create the ESP/EFI for windows.
Windows may recreate the ESP or may just add the missing files.
You would always have a backup by using the Live-Boot Rescue menu to boot into MX.
When the Win ESP is working, power off from windows with holding Shift-Key when clicking on power-off
or disable windows fast-startup permanently.
When booted into MX, recreate the boot menu with:

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sudo update-grub

Good luck.

[noursle]

Thank you very much for your help, I will try it this evening!
Best regards from tiny Luxembourg,
Marcel

[linexer2016]

noursle,
This may be of value (or not). At times I've had to reinstall and the Windows menu has disappeared. What I have found success in is boot into MX. Grab from mxpi if you haven't already got it installed, Grub Customizer. Run GC and you very well may find (as I've done) the errant Windows menu. Good luck if the later suggestions in this thread don't solve your problem.