I have a Laptop 13 running Intel 13th gen with Fedora installed on the SSD and Windows 11 on an expansion card. Windows has been booting fine for months now, yet today, Windows 11 won’t boot. I’d left the laptop on overnight and this morning it was off for some reason.
When I go into the bios it does not show the storage expansion card as being available.
When I boot into Fedora, the storage expansion card is also not displayed. Yet, if I remove it and then put it back in, Fedora recognizes it.
I’ve updated to the latest bios and still no joy.
I tried going into the bios, re-inserting the storage expansion card at which point it shows it but when I select it to boot from, the screen goes dark and nothing seems to happen.
I have some data on Windows 11 I would like to restore so reluctant to try a Windows reinstall.
Sounds like the boot section of that drive could be corrupted, if you can access the drive from within your linux install there’s likely some repair tools out there though I’ve never done the same so cant point you in the right direction.
I think bootable windows install drives can also repair installs, so that might be worth a shot too, though it may be worth backing up the drive when booted in Linux first.
Found some time to look into this issue. I think it boils down to the laptop not recognizing the expansion card at boot.
I’ve installed windows onto another usb thumb drive and can boot into that just fine. I’ve tried to use it to repair my windows installation on the expansion card but it doesn’t work as the windows repair tool does not allow me to select the expansion card.
I have the same issue as linux where windows on the usb does not recognize the expansion card. Yet, when I take the expansion card out and put it back in again, it can then see the expansion card.
I’ve tried putting the expansion card in the other slots but same issue, it is not seen when the laptop boots. It’s only seen when I take it out and reinsert it. At this point, I can actually use the windows command line to navigate into the expansion card and see the windows install and all of my files. I don’t think the card itself is corrupt as the files seem fine.
The only option I see is to reinstall windows 11 onto the expansion card. However, I’m reluctant to wipe my current installation and potentially lose data if the issue remains in that the laptop does not recognize the expansion card on boot.