So, I have two drives. #1 is a 1TB M.2 SSD, I’m currently dualbooting W10 and Linux Mint. (Please don’t hate, I use Windows only for work, cannot drop it. #2 is an older 250GB Sata SSD, it’s empty. I want to fresh install both OSs to #2 and use #1 as home for Linux.
Problem:
Drive #2 doesn’t show up as boot option in EFI (MSI Z690-A), only #1. When I boot into Windows setup from USB, I can start the installation, but it wants to reboot during the progress and I can’t choose #2 at all. So it boots into Linux, I see unfinished Windows on #2 but can not do anything about it.
I’m no beginner, but I’m clueless here. Any help?
I had a really frustrating time when I was trying to have a SATA and m.2 drive. Turns out some sata ports cannot be used while an SSD is in a given m.2 slot.
Look up your motherboards instruction manual, it should have the rules listed out. Give them to chatgpt and ask it to tell you how to plug your drives in.
Always install Windows first. Mint should be able to find your Windows install and have it as a bootable selection.
A quick fix you could try is to boot into Mint and reinstall the kernel. Itll run through the mkinitcpio and os-prober process and potentially add your Windows disk to the boot selection.
EFI doesn’t see drives as bootable items. There’s a single EFI partition that contains information on what can be booted. You need to add the appropriate info in your existing EFI partition that points to your SATA drive. You probably have to do this from your Mint setup.
