Install dual operating systems on multiple drives Combine Windows and Linux on two storage devices
Install dual operating systems on multiple drives Combine Windows and Linux on two storage devices
Hello, your goal is clear. You plan to set up a dualboot system with Windows 10 and Linux, using two separate M.2 SSDs. You want to allocate 50 GB from the 500 GB SSD for Linux and keep the rest as a data drive for Windows. It’s feasible if you adjust the partitions accordingly. You’ll need to partition the second SSD, possibly using tools like GParted or Disk Management, to reserve the desired space for Linux while leaving enough room for Windows. Just confirm the total size and ensure your OS partitions fit within the available space. Let me know if you need step-by-step guidance!
Begin by installing Windows. When setting up Linux, take advantage of advanced partition settings to define your partition sizes according to your maximum capacity. After that, from either system, utilize the remaining storage to generate an NTFS partition so both Windows and Linux can access it.
The drive will appear in Windows after installation. It may display the entire drive or just the remaining space depending on settings. Mounting issues in Ubuntu are unlikely since it won’t use the Linux space directly.
You can simply install next to the window, with a convenient slider to set the size of each partition.
Yeah, but that will put them on the same drive, which is not desired here. Assuming that you have Windows already installed, open GParted in your live environment (before running the installer), select the empty drive, make a 50GB ext4 partition (label it whatever you want), make an NTFS partition out of the remaining space, run the installer, select the ext4 partition as root and you're off to the races. Now, this is a VERY rough guide, by which I mean that these are more guidelines than clear instructions. This is because you did not mention whether your motherboard uses UEFI or BIOS and you did not mention the distro in question (not all installer are created equal). Please do do so.
I'll set up Windows 10 on one drive and then move Linux (likely Manjaro) to the second drive. Decide whether to make an ext4 partition first or create an NTFS partition in Windows and use available space for Linux. One suggestion was to install Windows while the Linux drive is detached, then switch to Linux after removal, and reconnect both. You mentioned avoiding boot managers and preferring a simple setup—wouldn't mind dealing with BIOS changes if needed. Your current UEFI setup shouldn't cause issues.
Windows disk manager isn't able to create ext4 partitions. However, it doesn't really matter if you divide the drive with the Windows partition manager before installing Linux or do it during the Linux setup—either approach should succeed. I agree more with the first point, as Windows tends to disregard Linux and just shut it down. Regarding the second point, I haven't encountered that necessity in practice; Linux usually installs smoothly alongside an existing Windows installation. It's unclear why someone would think the boot manager is slow, but that shouldn't be a problem, particularly if you stick to installing one drive at a time during the OS setup. Switching boot order in UEFI will likely be much more complicated than using a boot manager.
I don’t plan to use Linux often, so I’m concerned about always having to press enter in the boot menu to switch to Windows, which I’ll likely use 80-90% of the time. My laptop now starts in under 10 seconds from off to ready, and I’d like that feature too.