Can I renew a Win10/L-Mint dual boot without reinstalling Mint?
 

I recently did up a Win10/L-Mint dual boot on my i7 Lenovo Ideapad 710s. Later I foolishly updated everything including the BIOS. However,it sailed during the BIOS update. Sometimes I could the the machine to start in Mint or Win. Sometimes not with a "BIOS capsule ....reflash Bios error."

When Win 10 next loaded correctly21, I did a successful BIOS flash. Neither OS would then start. I reinstalled Win 10 and it seems to work well now including the problematic built-in Camera. I'm wondering if I can somehow get Mint to work again without reinstalling? Some sort of boot fix? I did a lot more work on the Mint install, adding apps, google drive access, etc., and I'd hate to have to doe it again.
I wondering if the Mint boot problem might just be a screwed up file or path reference? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Reflashing the firmware on a UEFI machine will reset the NVRAM that holds the boot variables. So strictly speaking you can't directly boot Mint even if it still exists on the disk. Can be worked around.
I'd be willing to bet the reinstall of Win10 erased the disk first. Boot your Mint install usb in live mode and run this from a terminal.

Here are the results. I'm not sure what they mean or how to proceed.

http://calypsotheatrical.com/link_images/lnx.jpg

Me too - wasn't what I was expecting. I'm guessing Lenovo default to RAID mode for the disk - jump into the firmware and see if the disk system is RAID. Linux requires that to be changed to AHCI - but if you do that you'll have to re-install Win10 again. Your choice.

There are procedures on the web to do the change without re-installing Win10, but I've no experience of that, and in this case probably not worth messing around.

So now Windows is working ok. I set windows boot manager down in the BIOS startup order putting the ubuntu selection at the top. Now I get the mint Boot manager I used to get. (pic 1) If I select windows it loads. If I select Mint I get the green LM logo but after a while end up with the result in (pic 2)
Would reinstalling windows also format the Mint partition? The partitions look the same as when I first set them up.

Pic 1
http://calypsotheatrical.com/link_images/LNX_BM.jpg

Pic 2

http://calypsotheatrical.com/link_images/LNX_Crash.jpg

Ouch. I remember killing raid the first time I did this. Will look into it again tomorrow. Thanks.

Yep. The BIOS update switched it back the RAID. I reset it back to AHCI in the BIOS and now Mint works. I don't mind reinstalling Windows. It's the L-Mint install I don't want to redo as I have that the way I want it. However, I'd read somewhere that adding Windows after Linux is way more problematic than the other way around. Thoughts, suggestions?

Are you able to boot in both systems?

I haven't tried booting windows since switching from Raid to AHCI, I just assumed it would not work just as Mint did not work on RAID, and syg00 has suggested. I'm at work now. Will check when I get home later. Just trying to get info in preparation for installing Windows after Mint, if it turns out I really have to.

I found some procedures and description, but they tend to be older from 2017.

Another thought. As my main object is to keep the current Mint install, is there a way to copy the Mint partition, wipe everything, Reinstall Win, then copy Mint back to the partition?

thanks for the responses.

Not much of an issue anymore with UEFI. If Windows didn't wipe the Mint install last time, unlikely to this time - just do it.

There are myriad solutions for backup - for a major point in time backup like this I like fsarchiver. It creates a compressed, checked-summed single file. It does require the partition be pre-allocated for the restore - no big deal but a consideration, and the liveUSB needs to have fsarchiver available.
A more traditional option is clonezilla which can also do that for you during the restore. Backups are never an optional consideration - more so in this context.

Both Win and Mint are working. The Mint boot seems a little different but works. However, on one occasion trying to shut it down, my only options were "Suspend" and "Cancel." Never seen that before. Used the power button to shut down.

The good news, the problematic builtin webcam works in both OSs.

Thanks all for the help.