There’s no way Windows would just access non-readable partition, and do anything with it, let alone delete it. No operating system does this.
Replacing the bootloader is of course much more likely, but the general rule is that if you can manage to install Linux, you probably can follow basic instructions to fix GRUB or whatever your bootloader is.
There’s no way Windows would just access non-readable partition
I knew that was true back in the day, but I haven’t tried dual booting in a long, long time. Also, I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft’s current incarnation to “accidentally” decide that that “empty” partition would be great for virtual memory and the hibernation image.
If you’re lucky, it’s still on the disk and you just need to “repair” the bootloader.
If not, well, that traumatised Mr Incredible pastiche might be at least a circle of hell too pleasant.
You have backups, right?
There’s no way Windows would just access non-readable partition, and do anything with it, let alone delete it. No operating system does this.
Replacing the bootloader is of course much more likely, but the general rule is that if you can manage to install Linux, you probably can follow basic instructions to fix GRUB or whatever your bootloader is.
I knew that was true back in the day, but I haven’t tried dual booting in a long, long time. Also, I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft’s current incarnation to “accidentally” decide that that “empty” partition would be great for virtual memory and the hibernation image.
Oh Windows knows this is the EFI partition, there is a flag for that. Windows just doesn’t care when it decides to nuke your bootloader with its own…
And yes, it’s still happening…
To be fair, windows does save its license key on ROM. It writes to the read-only memory. So it could.
Installing Linux is so simple nowadays that fixing the bootloader is a level higher now