Windows overwriting Linux backup drive?!

[Gendo]

Hey!

 

I have a dual boot system W11-Linux and have an external HDD for backups which was formatted with ext4 to be used with TimeShift. 

The other day I went to start a backup and it appears the drive file format isn't compatible so checked the disk and I guess Windows partitioned it since it has a 17MB boot section and 2TB of empty space.

Strangely after this (I'd guess days after) Windows saying I need to reactivate the licence because of hardware changes which isn't the case.

Haven't done anything that affects the disks nor hardware changes but I did update the bios recently and regular systems updates, is there any way I can find out why this happened? 

[manikyath]

either you clicked something by accident, or the hard drive took a dump and lost the partition.

 

i'd be very surprised if windows would remove an ext4 partition, and just leave the disk as empty space. i know there's a prompt about formatting USB drives, but as far as i'm aware the only way to delete partitions in windows is trough diskpart and specificly selecting to delete the partition.

 

as for the windows activation thing..

- do you load windows trough the normal 'included' bootloader? or are you using some grub thing?

- are you on a platform that uses some kind of fTPM that could be wiped by a bios update?

that's my two immediate 'first guesses'.

[Gendo]

30 minutes ago, manikyath said:

either you clicked something by accident, or the hard drive took a dump and lost the partition.

 

i'd be very surprised if windows would remove an ext4 partition, and just leave the disk as empty space. i know there's a prompt about formatting USB drives, but as far as i'm aware the only way to delete partitions in windows is trough diskpart and specificly selecting to delete the partition.

 

as for the windows activation thing..

- do you load windows trough the normal 'included' bootloader? or are you using some grub thing?

- are you on a platform that uses some kind of fTPM that could be wiped by a bios update?

that's my two immediate 'first guesses'.

Hmm, have been nowhere near partitioning tools lately and the disk shows as "Unallocated" on Windows but on Linux shows a tiny system reserved partition like crap W does.

Is not a big deal as my system works with the files intact but maybe there's some log or something that explains it so i can avoid it in the future, I only run Windows for 1 game and still ends up messing things up...

 

I do run grub as I did for years and the only thing I touch in the bios is OC as I never had issues before with dual booting, maybe the update altered something like TPM and such? Any other settings I could try that affect Windows boot? I just tried disabling Safe Boot now but still the same.

 

Edit: Also the clock is always off (windows) by 1 hour until I manually adjust it so could be a clue for something?

  

[Gendo]

Also I just checked and there's two fTPM settings in the Asus AMD bios which is separate from TPM ones.

I looked it up and I'm more confused than before, apparently WIndows doesn't care about it and can have both active.

[Kilrah]

Windows won't just delete a partition.

 

8 hours ago, Gendo said:

Edit: Also the clock is always off (windows) by 1 hour until I manually adjust it so could be a clue for something?

No that's usual, Windows sets the BIOS to local time but Linux sets it as UTC. Can change one to match the other.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/323390/how-to-fix-windows-and-linux-showing-different-times-when-dual-booting/

[Eigenvektor]

8 hours ago, Gendo said:

Edit: Also the clock is always off (windows) by 1 hour until I manually adjust it so could be a clue for something?

Completely normal. The method I've always used is to set the Windows registry key to make Windows use UTC. This way Windows and Linux no longer fight over whether the computer's clock should be local time or UTC.

[Gendo]

11 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

Completely normal. The method I've always used is to set the Windows registry key to make Windows use UTC. This way Windows and Linux no longer fight over whether the computer's clock should be local time or UTC.

Yeah seems to be UTC, it's just strange that started happening now with windows being deactivated. I guess it's time to delete windows and forget about it.