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Preface: This is/was an attempt at creating a dual boot laptop (Asus), primary drive is housed on the motherboard sda has Linux Mint installed, secondary drive sdb has Windows 10 installed and plugs into a USB port. When booting, GRUB is supposed to offer option of which operating system to boot, then on with my day.

Walk-thru that I used: https://linuxconfig.org/booting-a-ms-windows-os-using-grub

Main Question: I physically removed my Linux drive sda from the motherboard, I inserted a fresh (Samsung EVO) drive in the slot, installed Windows 10 from a USB boot thumb drive and all works well. HOWEVER, when I physically reinstall the drive with Linux sda back to the motherboard and the drive sdb with Windows 10 on it routed thru USB with a SATA cable, Grub menu does recognize Windows drive, but then shows an error. This is proving far more difficult than I imagined.

sudo fdisk -l returns this:

Disk /dev/sda: 465.78 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Samsung SSD 860
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 46F59D28-FB25-474E-A960-05E68DECC9F9

Device       Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1     2048   1050623   1048576   512M EFI System
/dev/sda2  1050624 976771071 975720448 465.3G Linux filesystem




Disk /dev/sdb: 465.78 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: SSD 860 EVO 500G
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 33553920 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 3ECD489E-2E3F-4E2C-A16D-2D5E082CF595

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1       2048    206847    204800   100M EFI System
/dev/sdb2     206848    239615     32768    16M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sdb3     239616 975725196 975485581 465.2G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb4  975726592 976769023   1042432   509M Windows recovery environment

os-prober returns this:

/dev/sdb1@/efi/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi:Windows Boot Manager:Windows:efi

I run sudo update-grub, when I reboot and select Windows on the Grub menu I get:

error: no such device: 149D-BEB9.
error: disk 'hd1,gpt1' not found.

Press any key to continue...

Do any of you know how I can get this working?

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  • 1
    A general FYI about running Windows from a USB connection - all it takes is a tiny bump to either cable end to crash the OS. Windows isn't designed to be run from USB - it will run fine from a USB3 connected SSD, however the cable is the Achilles heel. It's also recommended to get an aluminum enclosure for the SSD and a 3ft USB3/USB-C cable for the enclosure so it can be stored vertically for heat dissipation (it will get hot enough to burn if laid horizontally and disk intensive operations are performed)
    – JW0914
    Commented Apr 26 at 13:19

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You might need to regenerate fstab file /etc/fstab. From the error you have shown, grub is looking for the device with UUID matching 149D-BEB9, but this doesn't exist anymore. I'm not sure how to do this on Linux Mint, but on ArchLinux, it's possible using the genfstab command, which might also be available on Linux Mint.

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  • Thanks mate, I looked into fstab command and formatted it with the UUID, it does mount the drive, however I'm not sure how windows is suppose to boot. Its as if windows knows it is no longer connected to motherboard and is grumpy about booting via USB.
    – BoomerDave
    Commented Apr 28 at 1:08

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