@appuru it was windows 10 i had the problem with. normally you could do a new install of windows while keeping your files but that didn't work for me.

my thought is that something caused the install to corrupt in such a way that there's no coming back from it. even a system restore point didn't save me.

if you have any way of booting into another operating system then you should still be able to access all of your files on that drive. even just using another computer to make a portable linux flash drive and then copying your files over somewhere else would work. but there's a good chance you need a new windows install.

@beardalaxy Yeah, I can access my files from Arch .... but I still need Windows ... damn.
Idk what the hell broke it, but this happened right after Arch installation. I've seen other people dual booted no problem....

@appuru i don't know anything about dual booting from the same drive, i've only ever done separate drives. so maybe it's possible something went wrong there?

@beardalaxy I did it on separate drives .....

@appuru
Ah, I think you should be able to just skip GRUB by reselecting your windows drive as your boot drive from your Bios options. You can also try to boot directly into your windows drive with F12.

@fenrir0wulf Tried that too

@appuru In that case then, the best option would be to get into the recovery screen, go to Troubleshoot > Advanced > System Restore and see if there's anything option to restore without removing data.

@fenrir0wulf It didn't show me any ((((
Looks like i'll have to reinstall damm ....

@appuru @beardalaxy These didn't work? Do these in the recovery media or installation media, not inside Windows.

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

They should if the problem is "just" failing to boot. If they don't fix it there is something very wrong with the system drive (corrupted files for example).

You do have restore points, right? Have you tried restoring yet? From the installation media -> repair your computer -> advanced -> troubleshoot -> advanced -> system restore. And then select a known time the computer worked.

@susie @appuru i assumed he'd already tried like i did lol but yes do these things if you haven't already

@beardalaxy @susie yeah classic Microsoft troubleshooting .... they have commands, but if they don't work it's .... "oh well" XD

@appuru @beardalaxy Is the issue just failing to boot then? What did the other bootrec commands say?

You could try installing efistub or grub or other linux boot manager to see if the issue is on that rather than the booting process itself (as in if it fails before the windows logo appears).

@susie @beardalaxy I think GRUB is already installed (at least it should be), during Arch install ... but I will check anyways, or reinstall it regardless.
All commands except the first one said the same "access denied" .... like it's not my fucking PC.
"YOU DONT OWN YOUR PC"

@appuru @beardalaxy Ah, I see. So dual boot fucked up the boot section on the Windows drive. That's a "linux issue" as in you have to fix it in the linux side (not blaming linux, just you can't boot linux on windows boot manager and dual boot works by nuking the windows side in favor of linux boot manager). Trying to repair it from Windows side isn't feasible/possible.

The access denied is most likely related to different filesystem than what Windows expects on what it thinks is the boot partition/section/whatever of the drive. I'd make sure /boot is always fat32 on linux end anyways, since booting is a mess.

I'm not the best at Linux stuff, since I mostly deal with servers with no dual booting.

@susie @beardalaxy I see I see ... so that's kinda good I guess lol
Meaning that Windows is not 'forever broken" ... right?
It's been a while since i did this shit, so forgive me for being a noob in a way lol
You're saying it shoud work if I sort the GRUB out on Linux end ?

@appuru @beardalaxy Yes, it should work just by fixing the linux end (grub or whatever you use). Make sure bios points to the right boot manager too.

I don't know how these things work nowadays when it comes to dual booting, but reading the grub documentation and wiki page should help (if Arch comes with grub).

@susie @beardalaxy awesome, thanks.
I think "adding it to the GRUB directory" or something like that will work. Because, now Arch doesn't even see Windows exists at all XD
I remember it used to work out of the box, no problem on some Debian based distros years ago ....

@appuru @beardalaxy I remember we used to just install "os-prober" and run "grub-mkconfig" afterwards. There are probably some "better" ways to do it nowadays, but try that. Should be the easiest fix.

@susie @beardalaxy I will try that now

@susie @beardalaxy Grub still doesn't even see Windows (((

@appuru @beardalaxy Just a dumb follow up, but what does sudo os-prober say? It might be it finds it just fine, but grub has os-prober disabled in Arch.
There could be a GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true line in grub configuration file.

Anyway, adding it manually isn't hard if you follow a tutorial. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GRUB#Dual-booting is the wiki link. It might look hard, but just read it slowly and do it step by step and it should be fine.

@susie @beardalaxy It didn't find any restore points.
/fixmbr works, but /fixboot gives me "access denied"