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Windows 10 Anniversary Update Borks Dual-Boot Partitions (omgubuntu.co.uk)
Windows 10 Anniversary Update may affect and even delete other partitions on the same disk, OMGUbuntu is reporting, citing several complaints by users. "Broken boot loaders on an update are one thing but losing data, even entire partitions?" asks the author. Microsoft-centric news blog WindowsReport is corroborating on the report, adding that in some cases, the new OS was not able to detect some partitions. It says (edited): Many users are reporting that some of their partitions disappeared after installing the Anniversary Update. Usually, it's the smallest partition that disappears, although we couldn't say for sure whether the partition is deleted or if Windows simply doesn't detect it. Some users are saying that the partition is not allocated, while others can detect it once they install third-party partition management applications.We have reached out to Microsoft for clarification, and will update the post when we hear back from them.
lost my primary Linux partition which was my main OS. could not recover partition intact, only 120,000 files recovered with photorec. will use VMs in future if I need windows for anything
No, it's more like "fuck", as in "Microsoft is fucking over anyone who puts another OS on their computer."
Good ol' Microsoft. Still evil after all these years.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I cannot imagine a worse combination.
As in, installing Windows after installing Linux will mess with the boot loader.
Everyone running a dual boot system should already be aware of this since the recommendation is always to install Linux second.
New major updates to Windows 10 are basically entirely new operating systems. They just make the process more transparent these days.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
While I imagine I'll have to bite the bullet on my sole Win 10 machine eventually and download the anniversary edition, I intentionally set it to "Metered Connection" for exactly this reason. I like to let major updates hit and assess the impact for a few days before taking the plunge, and currently telling Windows you're on a metered connection is the only way to get it to not automatically download updates. Looks like I'll be waiting a bit longer than I thought - would not appreciate my Linux partition going up in smoke.
This was my problem with Windows 10 when I installed it a few months ago. It failed to do some update, so wanted to repair itself, but every time it tried it was trying to restore itself on the EFI partition, not the actual windows partition. Thankfully at that point I still had grub installed with the boot sector of one of my disks intact, so was able to boot into Linux via legacy option, but after many failed attempts to boot windows 10 and having it trash my EFI partition while trying to restore, I gave up and haven't booted windows since. No loss though, I only ever booted it up to do updates in case one day I ever actually needed to do another cross platform build.
Still evil? They've gotten significantly more evil since Gandhi took over.
Windows isn't done until Lotus doesn't run.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I wonder how long until some automatic Windows 10 update will disable altering any BIOS settings via some rootkit for "security" reasons. I mean, if they're not going to get hit with antitrust violations or charges of abusing their customers for all of the things they've done already (force Windows 10 updates on Win7/8. 1 users, telemetry that deceptively appears to be able to be turned off but really can't, no unsigned drivers allowed, uploading BitLocker keys to their servers, remove features during routine updates, uninstall programs during routine updates, ever-growing built-in advertisements, etc.), then they can pretty much just do anything they like, including preventing other operating systems from booting (which, I add, is now the case both on Windows RT tablets and Windows 10 phones).
If they would only develop games so they supported Linux too, I could totally get rid of Microsoft's malware off my PC forever.
No, it's more like "fuck", as in "Microsoft is fucking over anyone who puts another OS on their computer."
Exactly. So far as I'm concerned, it's not an accident on the part of Microsoft. They want to own your computer, and pwn you in the process. Any competing OS must be destroyed utterly. Wouldn't at all be surprised if it not only deletes the affected partition(s), but overwrites them first, rendering anything on them unrecoverable. What's next, Microsoft? Virus hidden in the reserved section of the drive, that thwarts any attempt to remove Windows? Render your hard drive unusable if you uninstall Windows? Reprogram all the VR's on your motherboard and smoke the processor core and PCH if you attempt to install a dual-boot? Assholes.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
+1 Insightful, -1 Vaguely Racist
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I actually had the issue of Windows 10 deleting its OWN partitions. computer started running funny, then it BSODed and then would only boot to a flashing cursor. Booted into repair only to find that my system drive was reporting as 100% available. not even the Windows 10 system partitions were present. nothing could read any semblance of a partition table from the drive to recover any of my data.
I suppose this isn't entirely unexpected. Windows has never played well with others in a multi-boot environment. I recall that it doesn't preserve alternate bootloaders like Grub when installing a new OS, and I'd imagine that's how these major upgrades are treated. There were probably changes to the bootloader of some sort, and so it blithely "updated" it, wiping out the existing bootloader, apparently without bothering to confirm whether it *should* or not.
This is why my Windows dev machine is Windows-only, and I've got a separate Linux box with multiple distros on it for Linux-specific development.
But seriously, Microsoft? That's just lame. It's hard to imagine that this isn't a known scenario that they wouldn't think to test for. It's not like multi-boot scenarios are unheard of.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Also - It installs Cortana and fully enables it, no surprise there, but if you go into all of the privacy settings it has changed the settings for items like writing monitor to "help Microsoft track how you type". Yeah they need to know that all right... as well as several other items I found had been reverted back to the non private settings. One, the diagnostic phone home, is again on and takes a registry hack to turn it back off again.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Microsoft Loves Linux*
*as long as Linux isn't running a GUI. From Microsoft's point of view you don't need a Linux partition any more. You can do your Linux script development under their Ubuntu on Windows thingy - and after all, Linux is only a server OS. No need for the GUI stuff. Of course no current Linux desktop users are going to be satisfied with that - but maybe some folks will find it useful as an addon to their current Windows-centric desktop worlds.
It seems like MS has accepted that they've lost the battle (if not the war) as far as Linux as a cloud-based app server is concerned. But it looks like they're still hoping that's the only place Linux will get traction. Of course, it's already got traction in mobile too, and MS seems resigned to that. But they're still in panic mode where the traditional is concerned. It's bad enough that they can't do anything about this ChromeOS thing. But on desktop PC's that also run Windows, they're still in control...
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
More games than I can handle, really. All full Linux ports. I do have Windows, but haven't booted it to play games in at least a couple months now.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Back in the late 1990's I was dual booting Windows and Linux. A PC magazine had included a CD with an early version Red Hat Linux and ran a series of articles on the strange OS. Linux had no problems dealing with the Windows partitions.
Move forward a bit to Windows XP and more dual booting.Commercial and free partition managers support Linux partitions. Windows would still screw with Linux partition, particularly when installing Windows, so having keeping each OS on a separate physical HDD became critical. That way you could unplug the Linux drive to protect it from MS incompetence. Amusingly, Linux could mount Windows partitions to transfer files over and I was able to install a driver on Windows that allowed Windows to mount Linux partitions, however, Windows XP had no native support for non-windows partitions. Linux proves to be more capable in key area than Windows but I'm still using WInXP as my main OS.
Jump forward to Windows 7 and Linux dual booting. The situation has improved a bit because you could technically let Win7 manage booting mulitple OS but it still screws with Linux partitions and has no native support for Linux partition types. Linux still does a better job and I can go months without booting into Windows anyway. More commercial software supports Linux, including games, and the open source applications available have greatly improved to the point of being better than MS products. I really hated the ribbon interface nonsense in MS Office because it reduced my productivity, it was nearly a stupid as having some animated paperclip jumping around on your screen while you're trying to work...
Windows 8 appears and I decided than if I'm ever forced to replace Win7 I'll just give up on dual booting and just stick with Linux full time. Windows 10 brings spyware and adware built into the OS, setting a new low for MS and having some very surprising side effects; friends, family and people barely know are wanting to know about Linux and how they can get away from Windows 10. There has never been a version of Windows that happily coexists with another OS, why would anyone be surprised that Win10 is breaking Linux dual boots? It is either intentionally evil or supreme incompetence; MS has a history of both.
"It seems like MS has accepted that they've lost the battle (if not the war) as far as Linux as a cloud-based app server is concerned."
either that or they are "embracing" it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong." (Oscar Wilde)
This is Microsoft's revenge for seeing another operating system on the side during your anniversary!
Microsoft has altered the deal. Pray they do not alter it further.
Reminds me of an issue I have with WDC 'advanced format' drives (4096 physical, 512 logical sector size) plugged into my cheapo' external usb adapter. It messes up and treats them as 4096/4096 (or 512/512?) devices, so all the sector offsets are counted wrong. But sector 0 still works and so the partition table can be read. The contents can be interpreted properly using a geom gnop sector size adapter device, if desperate.
At this point in time I feel I have every reason to believe that Microsoft wants to move towards hegemony over Linux in general, as part of a long-term plan to completely dominate the desktop OS market; they want ALL desktop OSes to be Microsoft OSes. You all complain about 'systemd' right now? Just wait until Microsoft gets done with Linux, it'll be the same malware/spyware/botnet that Windows is. This has to be fought tooth-and-nail to the last. This goes way beyond just hating Microsoft.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Microsoft has a utility to repair core OS files.
Just look up "Using System File Checker (SFC) To Fix Issues"
A common problem with Windows 10 is the start menu will stop opening. This is caused by Windows 10 corrupting its core OS files. (Please note: it is Windows 10 corrupting the core files, not any other program) The exact case(s) for when this happens is not known. It is suspected that Windows Update is one of the main causes of this problem.
I personally ran into this on my Surface Pro 3. The easy way of fixing this is to use SFC with Windows Update to download the needed files. The only problem is that most people that run into this problem also have their Windows Update files corrupted. SFC can be used without Windows Update, but by that point it was easier for me to do a Windows Refresh and just re-install all my Win32 applications and fix up my settings. A refresh on my main machine would be almost unthinkable because of how much time it would take to rebuild.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
I'm not saying this would happen, but for instance: Who would have guessed that some little cable company called 'Comcast' would end up owning one of the Big Three television networks and Universal Studios? Microsoft is a big company with lots of assets. If Apple fucked up the wrong way, they could find themselves being bought out by Microsoft. Then there wouldn't be anyone else left that mattered. Of course, theoretically, the federal government wouldn't allow such an out-and-out monopoly like that.. but what if Microsoft instead decided to block as much interoperability with Apple's OSes as they could? Apple already runs on hardware that could run Windows. With the right combination of evil dick moves they could more or less, theoretically, force Apple and/or Apple users to use Windows.
Note again that I'm not saying any of this would actually happen. But it's not as far-fetched as one might think.
Of course I'd rather have NO computer than be forced to use some shitty OS that spies on me constantly, countermands my choices and decisions, and in general can be taken over completely by some asshole corporation like Microsoft, but sadly that's just me. My first computer was built with perfboard, a soldering iron, and my own nascent knowledge of electronics. I can live without one if I have to, or at least without any Internet-connected computers. But most people are hopelessly stuck with it all. We all just have to keep fighting the whole thing and never give up. Microsoft can't be allowed to become the de-facto owners of everyone's computers, and be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want. It's just WRONG.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Last Friday, after one too many "Microsoft disabled X" and "Microsoft changed Y", I have moved my two Windows 10 Pro licenses from the hardware to virtual machines. They can bork themselves all they want, the worst it would happen I have to scp the backup back and untar it. This is getting too far...
Unless you absolutely have to, do _not_ install Linux and Windows on the same physical hard drive. For many purposes (e.g. basic coding and web stuff) a lightweight Linux distro will run just fine off a USB memory stick (I use Ultra Fit's in either the 32GB or 64GB size). Then, if you are buying a laptop and you're a techie, get something where it is trivially easy to swap out either the hard drive (i.e. not Asus crap where you have to remove the keyboard to get at the hard drive), or the optical drive. For example, boot Windows of one hard drive, and stick another in the optical drive bay. If you have a desktop, you have room for more than one physical drive. This also means that, during critical stuff like OS installs, you can physically disconnect your Linux drive so that Windows cannot get at it. My favourite example of Redmond silliness involved Windows 2000 appearing to enumerate partitions one way in the partitioning part of setup, and another way for the formatting part. Basically, on my dual boot drive, Windows 2000 setup ended up formatting the wrong partition. I say it had cocked up when I noticed the size of the partition it was formatting: my shared data drive. By the time I had stopped the process, of course, the FATs were already overwritten.
John_Chalisque
You know what else was awesome? How Microsoft took this opportunity to re-install the Get Office app (how I missed those nag screens informing me that my copy of Office 2010 just isn't shiny enough), and to put the Edge browser and MS Store icons back on my task bar. Because, my goodness, I had completely lost those apps. Thank goodness Microsoft is looking out for me by making sure I can find these valuable services again.
*tosses them into recycle bin once again*
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.