Hi, so I dual-boot Windows and Arch Linux. I ran a Windows update and left to eat dinner. After I came back, I came back to see Grub in rescue mode. The only boot option is now UEFI - GRUB. Using a live Arch Linux system, I found out that all files on the main partitions are fine. I'm just confused about what happened and what's actually broken.

Hi Amir! I am glad to hear that there is now GRUB. It's just the bootloader (UEFI) that is in a weird state. Likely from the Windows update overwriting or deregistering the GRUB boot entry. Let's try these steps to fix it:

1. Boot into Arch using your USB again

You’ve done this part already, so I’ll skip the long steps. Just boot into the Arch Live USB and open the terminal.

2. Re-mount everything properly

This is super important, and it looks like there was a mix-up in your earlier mount paths. Let’s clean it up:

Mount your Linux system (adjust if your root is different)

mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt

Mount the EFI system partition

mount /dev/nvme0n1p4 /mnt/boot/efi

Bind system folders (so you can "act" like you're inside the real system)

mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc

mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys

3. Chroot into your system

arch-chroot /mnt

4. Reinstall GRUB the right way

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

5. Make sure GRUB will be used at startup

Check the boot order like this:

efibootmgr -v

* If GRUB is listed but not first in the list, you can fix that:

efibootmgr -o XXXX,YYYY

Replace XXXX with the number for GRUB

6. Reboot

Exit everything:

exit

umount -R /mnt

reboot

And remove the USB stick when the screen goes dark.

* For the Partition warning

You saw an error on /dev/nvme0n1p2 (Microsoft Reserved Partition)? That’s normal. It’s not supposed to have a file system. GParted just gets confused and warns about it. Nothing’s broken. Ignore it unless you’re seeing other serious problems in Windows.

I hope this helps.

Thank you so much for the update. I truly appreciate you taking the time to figure it out, and I’m really glad to hear you found a solution that got things working.

Thanks for your replay!

Unfortunately, your solution didn't work, but here's what worked:

I booted into a Windows 10 live usb(for some reason 11 didn't really work for me, but it doesn't matter)

Opened command prompt (Shift + F10 works I'm pretty sure)

And then I followed the top reply from this reddit thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsHelp/comments/wjtyhf/bootrec\_rebuildbcd\_the\_requested\_system\_device

WARNING: It DOES delete your Linux EFI partition, but recovering it is easier than performing dark magic with windows

Thanks for your reply, Sarah!

You helped a LOT, there is now GRUB but the only option it gives me is UEFI Firmware Settings.

The exact commands I did were:

mount /dev/nvme0n1p5 /mnt (nvme0n1p5 is my linux root partition)

mount /dev/nvme0n1p4 /mnt/efi/boot --mkdir (nvme0n1p4 is my Linux uefi partition)

mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc

mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys

arch-chroot /mnt

grub-install /dev/nvme0n1

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

exit

poweroff

I noticed that after grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg returns grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sda1. Check your device.map.

(/dev/sda is my USB)

I couldn't find an answer on the internet. Would installing super grub fix my problem?

EDITED: I managed to boot into Arch Linux using Super Grub 2 Disk

In GParted /dev/nvme0n1p2 Microsoft reserved partition has a warning and says
Unable to detect file system! Possible reasons are:

• The file system is damaged
• The file system is unknown to GParted
• There is no file system available (unformatted)
• The device entry /dev/nvme0n1p2 is missing

I don't know if that happened because of the update or I just messed something up while trying to fix GRUB. Do I try to fix it with a live windows USB, if yes then how?

Hi! I'm Sarah, an Independent Advisor. I totally understand how upsetting this must be. Let's go ahead and do some troubleshooting to fix the issue.

1. Boot into the Live USB

• Start your computer using the same Arch USB you used earlier.

2. Open the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T)
3. Mount your system so you can work on it

Mount your Linux root partition (e.g., sda2 — adjust if needed)

sudo mount /dev/sdX# /mnt

Mount your EFI partition (probably sda1 or sda3 depending on your setup)

sudo mount /dev/sdY# /mnt/boot/efi

Bind system directories so we can "chroot" later

sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc

sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys

If you're unsure which partition is which, use "lsblk" or "fdisk -l" to look.

4. Chroot

sudo arch-chroot /mnt

5. Reinstall GRUB

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader-id=GRUB

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

6. Exit, unmount, and reboot

exit

sudo umount -R /mnt

sudo reboot

Remove the Live USB when your system starts rebooting. Your computer should boot to the GRUB menu like before and give you the choice between Arch and Windows.

I hope this helps.