Windows Not Showing in GRUB on Arch Linux? Fix Dual Boot Step-by-Step
arch linux arch linux troubleshooting dual boot grub grub os-prober howto linux linux boot issues linux bootloader musabase guides windows dual boot windows not showing in grub
This guide is part of the MusaBase Arch Linux series. For the complete overview, see the Arch Linux Complete Guide.
If you installed Arch Linux alongside Windows and expected a clean dual boot menu, chances are you ran into a frustrating surprise. You boot your system, GRUB shows up, but Windows is missing. No option to boot into Windows, no clear error, and no explanation of what went wrong.
This is a very common issue on Arch Linux. Unlike many other distributions, Arch does not automatically detect Windows during GRUB setup. Features like os-prober are disabled by default, and if your Windows partition is not readable or mounted correctly, GRUB simply ignores it. Running grub-mkconfig alone is often not enough.
Welcome back to MusaBase!
In this guide, I will show you the proper and reliable way to fix GRUB dual boot on Arch Linux. This guide focuses on making GRUB correctly detect your existing Windows installation and keeping it stable after updates.
Here is exactly what we are going to do in this guide:
- Install and enable os-prober on Arch Linux
- Regenerate grub.cfg correctly for dual boot
- Fix cases where Windows is still not detected after running grub-mkconfig
- Install ntfs-3g to ensure the Windows partition is readable
- Manually mount the Windows partition and re-detect it in GRUB
- Confirm that GRUB successfully finds and adds the Windows boot entry










