Recover UEFI boot of Windows 10 after failed Linux install

Question

So I have tried to install CentOS on a laptop with existing Windows 10, after freeing some space by shrinking Windows parttion inside Windows. But, while it did boot up, it moved the system no non-EFI and garbled the Windows boot.

I do have Windows 10 installation media now. So I tried:

bootrec /fixmbr - succeeded

bootrec /scanos - finds 0 windows instalations?? Despite the Windows partition being perfectly readable.

bootrec /fixboot - access is denied?! Even after reformatting the EFI system partition.

bcdboot C:\windows /s N: /f UEFI - success. But boot is not fixed. (N is where I mount the EFI system drive)

So I renamed N:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD to BCD.old and did

bootrec /rebuildbcd

This did find the Windows installation successfully. But the boot is still not working!

Startup Repair from the installation media also fails.

I found that the installer created a second EFI style partition (but never marked it System). I tried creating BCD on that too, then I deleted the partition. Now I only have the original EFI partition with newly created BCD for the Windows I have, marked as System in diskpart. It still will not boot!

Moreover, after deleting the partition I tried to switch to Legacy First boot. Parted shows the EFI system partition as "boot" so I tried to create boot files on it also for BIOS:

bcdboot C:\windows /s N: /f UEFI

Still no boot!

I am totally baffled at this now. What can I do to get Windows back? I don't care if Linux boots - i can do a new install (probably a different distro) after I fix Windows.

Answer 1

I have eventually found the solution. It is pretty non-trivial. Namely, I ran gdisk under a Linux system (booted from USB) and there used the v command. The result was:

Command (? for help): v

Warning: The 0xEE protective partition in the MBR is marked as active. This is
technically a violation of the GPT specification, and can cause some EFIs to
ignore the disk, but it is required to boot from a GPT disk on some BIOS-based
computers. You can clear this flag by creating a fresh protective MBR using
the 'n' option on the experts' menu.

No problems found. 227331437 free sectors (108.4 GiB) available in 3
segments, the largest of which is 225280000 (107.4 GiB) in size.

Then I used e (expert mode), then n, then w (write out). Then rebooted and Windows fired up.