Dual Boot Kali Linux & Windows

[erze7811]

I updated my Windows 11 today and after updating and restarting I get a black screen with the text. I run dual boot Kali Linux and Windows 11

errror: unknown filesystem

grub rescue> >

 

Is there a way to fix this?

Many thanks in advance

Edited June 5, 2025 by erze7811

[NoLeafClover]

Do you know if you have or had a Windows Recovery partition (usually around 1GB or less) before and after the Windows update?

 

The above is most commonly caused when there isn't a Windows Recovery partition and Windows update decides unilaterally, without any notice or user confirmation, to change the partition layout by shrinking the C: partition and inserting its recovery partition. Then, if GRUB is configured to look for the partition containing the kernel and initramfs by index (e.g. drive 0, partition 2) - which is very common - then it will point to an incorrect partition.

 

The solution is to use the rescue prompt to boot your Linux manually by providing what GRUB needs.

 

Use "ls" to list the detected partitions, e.g.:

grub rescue> ls
(hd0), (hd0, gpt1), (hd0,gpt2)

You can also check which one has the necessary boot files, e.g.

grub rescue> ls (hd0,gpt3)/
./ ../ lost+found/ grub2/ loader/

If you have a separate "/boot" partition, look for the partition that contains the "grub2" (or "grub") folder, as well as files starting with "vmlinuz", "initrd", "initramfs", or "kernel". If you do not have a separate "/boot" partition, look for the root one, i.e. the partition containing the directories "boot/", "dev/", "etc/", and others.

 

When you have identified the partition (e.g. hd0,gpt2) and the path to the GRUB configuration (e.g. "/grub2" or "/boot/grub2"), input the commands below, replacing as appropriate:

grub rescue> set boot=(hd0,gpt2)
grub rescue> set prefix=(hd0,gpt2)/boot/grub2
grub rescue> insmod normal
grub rescue> normal

If all goes well this should now bring up the GRUB menu and you should hopefully be able to boot into Kali as usual. But this is a temporary solution! Once you boot into Kali, make sure you reconfigure grub with "sudo update-grub" and I would even recommend to reinstall GRUB altogether, which should reconfigure GRUB to point to the correct partition.

 

For details on what the above does see GRUB only offers a rescue shell in the GRUB manual.

[Ralphred]

On 6/5/2025 at 8:30 PM, erze7811 said:

Is there a way to fix this?

Indeed there is, and any competent Kali user will actually do so without the need for consultaion.

If you find yourself outside this category of "competent Kali user" then the suggestion that you use "N00buntu" instead would be fully and easily justified.