If you dual-boot Linux, don’t make these costly 4 mistakes
If you dual-boot Linux, don’t make these costly 4 mistakes
https://www.makeuseof.com/if-you-dual-boot-linux-dont-make-these-costly-mistakes/
Publish Date: 2026-02-16 06:00:00
Source Domain: www.makeuseof.com
The first time Windows removed my Linux boot entry, it happened out of the blue; no crash, no warning, and no error message. All I had done was update Windows, and on startup, my computer booted straight into Windows. It was like Linux had never existed on the computer. All my partitions remained intact, but my firmware state didn’t.
Dual-booting is easy; however, these systems share a single EFI System Partition, modify UEFI boot variables, navigate TPM-backed security, and manage filesystems that don’t entirely trust each other. Treating it like a normal installation can be costly.
Not backing up and understanding the EFI System Partition
That small FAT32 partition decides what boots
Afam Onyimadu / MUO
EFI System Partitions range between 100MB and 512MB and are typically formatted as FAT32 on modern computers. This appears as EFI System Partition on the Windows Disk Management tool, and Linux mounts it at /boot/efi. This partition includes the EFIMicrosoftBoot directory, and after installing Ubuntu, the EFIubuntu directory. EFI System Partitions include Windows Boot Manager and GRUB’s EFI binaries; and the firmware first loads from this location before the OS starts.
However, in addition to the files in the ESP, your boot chain relies on correct partition identifiers because grub.cfg, which is GRUB’s configuration file, references the UUID (Universally Unique…
