Linux mint
Linux mint
I set up Linux Mint on my computer by watching a tutorial on YouTube. They mentioned removing the entire HDD during installation. Since I have four drives, I’m wondering if I can install Linux Mint on my C drive without wiping the data from the other drives.
Do you have four drives on your hard drive? Yes, you can install on one of them while keeping the others untouched. Mint won’t affect the other partitions. Can you clarify how your partitions are set up?
Consider backing up the data to an external drive first. Clear the HDD, set up Linux, and then transfer files from the external source. This approach offers three benefits: 1) Prevents installation errors that could damage your data. 2) Upgrades your partition table from MBR to GPT for better reliability. 3) Switches partitions to NTFS or EXT4, which are more efficient on Linux and manage fragmentation better.
I wouldn't agree with you—BTRFS is probably the better choice.
Maybe both options have advantages and disadvantages. Ext4 is established and dependable, offers journaling which helps with power failures or kernel crashes—this is why I still suggest it to most users. Btrfs includes modern features such as snapshots, file system compression, and copy-on-write capabilities. It also allows much bigger partitions and files compared to the previous standard, though that’s not a big concern for most people right now. In any case, he should consider moving away from NTFS unless he specifically needs it, like for an external drive he plans to use across different Windows machines where support for Ext4 or Btrfs isn’t available.
I’m quite passionate about btrfs, but I wouldn’t suggest it to someone new. A beginner might struggle to find the right resources when unexpected disk issues arise.