Is there a way to make Windows Fastboot and Ubuntu work together?

Question

I have Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 installed in my laptop. The problem is, when I enable fastboot,

• I can't view Windows partitions from Linux
• When booting up I think grub does something so sometimes Windows saying repairing boot and only shows a blue screen. I have to manually restart to fix it.

When I disable fastboot,

• Windows boot takes a very long time!

Is there a way to keep fastboot and fix the other issues?

Solution 1

Short answer:

No.

Long answer:

The "Fast Startup" name is something of a misnomer. This Windows feature actually turns shutdown operations into hibernation (suspend-to-disk) operations. As such, filesystem data structures are left in an inconsistent state. When another OS, such as Ubuntu, boots, it sees the disk in an inconsistent state, assumes that the previously-running OS crashed, and will either attempt to repair the disk or refuse to mount it. Thus, the Windows "Fast Startup" feature is fundamentally incompatible with a dual-boot setup. In principle, it could be fixed by having Windows sync its disks before doing its suspend-to-disk operation, but this would require changes in Windows, or at least a new third-party utility to add the functionality. I don't know how practical such a change would be, and AFAIK no such feature or add-on tool is available.

As a side note, the Windows "Fast Startup" feature is entirely different from the firmware feature that's often called "fast boot" or "fast start." This firmware feature takes shortcuts on hardware initialization in order to speed up the boot process. For instance, the firmware's fast start might skip initialization of some or all USB devices. This firmware feature usually works fine with Ubuntu, with the caveat that it may be impossible to boot an Ubuntu installer because the firmware won't see the USB flash drive. If you can boot acceptably, though, you can leave the firmware "fast start" feature active.

Solution 2

Yes. There is a workaround for that.

Windows "Fast Startup" is just hibernation. That's why Windows partitions can not be mounted with read-write permissions.

But if you setup /etc/fstab that Windows partitions are mount as read-only, you will "see" them. But you will be unable to write there.

It may be acceptable or not. But it is the only way to use Ubuntu with Windows "Fastboot" enabled.

If more detailed explanation on 'fstab' is needed, you can find it here.

Comments

[Panther]

No, the two are incompatible for the reasons you observe. There is no real way to fix this as fast boot assumes there are no changes to the (ntfs) partition between boots.

[phuclv]

Why disable Fast Boot on Windows 8 when having dual booting?

[NoOne]

I was thinking of installing Linux in dual boot lately. I don't want to access the Windows disk from Linux, I just want two OSes in separate drives. I always hibernate my Windows. Any idea what the latest Linux distros do (I was going for Debian in case it matters)? Avoid mounting or try to "fix" the drive? It would be terrible if they try to repair it. I hate getting corrupted boots or losing data... :(

[Rod Smith]

@NoOne, if you're not accessing your main Windows partition from Linux, then there's much less of a problem. You must be sure to COMPLETELY disable that access, though. Also, there is a potential for problems with the EFI System Partition (ESP), which is a shared FAT partition on which boot loaders are stored. It's best to create a second ESP for Linux in this situation, so that Windows won't try to access the Linux ESP and vice-versa.

[NoOne]

Thanks for the reply! The best way I found to block access to the disk is with echo 1 > /sys/block/sdx/device/delete as suggested here: askubuntu.com/a/554417 . Regarding the bootloader, I tried to install it on the Debian drive but my BIOS did not allow me to boot from there, so I had to store it on the Win10 drive. Luckily, it seems that you can restore the bootloader from a recovery media, so at least I can fix it if Windows decides to mess it up...

[NoOne]

Update: hiding the drive during boot as described here is better: askubuntu.com/a/554417/805980