Dual boot with Kali linux and W10 not working

Lazy_Evaluation

New Member
Joined
Dec 3, 2019
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Credits
0
Hello guys! I'm Davide.
I'm not totally new to Linux. I've used a bit of raspbian, kali linux (arm version), debian and slackware, but I've only done the basic things.
I need to do a basic videogame (Pacman) for a course at my computer science university (I'm at my 2nd year), and it will run on Linux's console. I could simply install a VM and run a random Linux there, but no, I like doing hard things and I thought that maybe this is the time I switch from Windows to Linux.
I've got 2 storage units, one is an old hdd with windows 10 (I use it mostly as a second storage) and the main drive, a 500gb SSD. After shrinking the Win partition releasing 150gb of space, I installed the kali amd 64.iso linux (both the CPU and GPU are AMD) in a 16gb pendrive, ran it, and tried to install Kali (pendrive ran in UEFI mode, I've got an UEFI), however, it returned an error with grub. Could not find the EFI partition. In fact, I used Windows 10 in my ssd, but the efi partition was in the old hdd, not in the ssd with my new Windows 10. So I created another partiton in the SSD (about 250mb big), assigned it as an EFI partiton and let the kali installer split automatically the 150gb free space in two partitons (swap and the system partition, no more splitted partitions since I'm a newibe). The installation finished successfully, but every time I powered on the computer it said "This is not a bootable device, insert one and press any key", and pressing any key resulted in a console with a kernel load and a Slackware64 running in my system (I've never installed Slackware in this pc. I guess it's something that the installer installed somewhere on the SSD.)
After some time I figured out the problem, this time I installed Kali NOT using the new EFI partition in the SSD but manually selecting the old EFI partiton in the HDD. It worked almost perfectly. Grub loaded with a cool graphic effect, Kali was right in the boot options with two other OS's (two versions of slackware64) and the pendrive, but Windows wasn't there. So I decided to do a *very big mistake*: removing my old hdd, and trying a clean install with only my SSD and the new EFI partition in the SSD.
I did it, grub didn't return any error, and everything worked perfectly on the installation, now the hdd has 6 partitions, two are for Windows, one is for the EFI, two for Linux and another partition, with "Extended" type (I have no idea what is it) that contains both the swap partiton and the Kali parition (I think this because its space is exactly the swap+kali linux gigabytes, and the "starting byte" is the same as the kali partiton startign byte, while the end is the same as the swap partiton end).
sda1 Windows
sda2 Windows
sda3 Extended
sda4 EFI
sda5 Kali
sda5 Swap

Everything worked perfectly during the installation. But this time, grub doesn't works! It has lost his cool graphic and is now a weird console-style grub, and it has only two slackware64 versions.
Any tips on how to fix that? I've tried:

1) using the "detect/load OS" function on the Grub menu
It returns "error: failure reading sector 0x80 from 'hd1'. This sometimes detects the USB pendrive.
2) trying to run the ssd from the boot menu, it says "this is not a bootable device".
3) as almost every solutions found in Google says, I ran several times Kali linux live, mounted my sda5 (Kali partiton) and sda4 as my EFI partition, changed the root in my new /mnt and ran update-grub --efi-something=/boot/efi, returned no errors, said it correctly found a Kali linux, rebooted, but nothing changed. I'm not sure if update-grub detects my Kali installation or my usb with Kali live.
4) Reinstalled Kali several times
5) Deleted and recreated the EFI partition

I'm pretty sure the problem is Grub, or the new EFI partiton. It's been two long days, and I still can't find a solution. Right now, I'm trying to run a "boot repair disk" live, some iso that runs lubuntu, and I've already tried to run Super Grub2 Disk but it returns error and opens a command prompt.

If you've got any solutions, please help. My two operating systems are installed there, waiting. :c
P.s. I'm sorry if I did any English mistake, if you want, you can tell me where I did any mistake and I will edit it. I'm Italian :p
Thanks anyway for the support!
 


first i think you need to simply things and work out the minimum you need; which will mean working out what you don't need.

So is the priority to have a single linux distro installed maybe just using a single hdd?
 
It's hard to tell from all the things you have done to your laptop but what is your boot drive for windows? Is it the SSD or the HDD? I would wipe everything that is not windows or possibly reinstall windows on the SSD and wipe the HDD completely. I believe a clean start will make the whole process easier. After making the SSD your boot device for windows, I would make sure there is unallocated space on the SSD for your Linux install. After installing Windows and Linux and confirming successful boots, add your HDD and allocate the space to windows. My current build is setup in this manner: Windows and Linux on a M.2 SSD with a HDD as in a ntsf format. My Linux build still has access and can rw to the ntfs HDD when I need the space.
 


Latest posts

Top