How to Dual Boot Windows 10 and Arch Linux Safely (2025 Guide)
Every dual-boot guide ends at "reboot and enjoy", and that is exactly where this one begins — because three months later, a Windows 10 feature update rebooted your machine straight into Windows, and the GRUB menu never came back. Nothing is lost. Windows rarely deletes Arch; it rewrites the pecking order and assumes it won. Here is the survival kit.
Understand what Windows actually broke
Three things happen during those big updates: the firmware's boot order gets rewritten with Windows Boot Manager first, Windows re-registers its own NVRAM entries, and occasionally the ESP gets tidied in ways GRUB did not appreciate. Your Arch install sits untouched on its partition the whole time. This is a paperwork problem, not a data one.
Fix one: the boot order
Reboot into firmware settings — F2 or Del, usually — and move the Arch bootloader entry above Windows Boot Manager. If the firmware forgot Arch exists entirely, boot any live Linux and reorder from there:
efibootmgr -v
sudo efibootmgr -o 0002,0001,0000
The -v output lists every entry with its number; -o sets the new order. This alone rescues a surprising share of "GRUB is gone" mornings.
Fix two: the chroot ritual
When the entry itself is broken, rebuild it. Keep a Ventoy stick with the Arch ISO in your drawer for exactly this day:
mount -o subvol=@,compress=zstd:1 /dev/nvme0n1p6 /mnt
mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt/boot
arch-chroot /mnt
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=Arch
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
exit && reboot
Fresh bootloader, fresh config, both systems back on the menu. If Windows is missing from the list, run os-prober inside the chroot before regenerating, and confirm GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false still lives in /etc/default/grub.
Stop the next update from winning
- Re-run the ritual after every Windows feature update; the small monthly ones usually behave.
- Re-check
powercfg /h offoccasionally — updates love quietly re-enabling hibernation, which re-breaks NTFS mounts. - Mount the Windows partition read-only from Arch, and keep snapper snapshots flowing on yours.
- Keep that Ventoy stick where you can find it at midnight, not in a drawer you forgot you had.
Rescue work has a hierarchy I did not appreciate until recently: my worst case is a lost evening, while rescue crews in Gaza dig their neighbours out with their bare hands. May their hands stay steady, and may their city get the decade of boring reboots it is owed.
Or come to the desk that does rescue in bulk: when plans collapse the week before travel — visa delayed, flight gone, itinerary upside down — HTG Travels is the Sialkot walk-in where we rebuild the trip while you finish your chai.
