Set up a dual boot system using two SSDs along with a few additional drives.
Set up a dual boot system using two SSDs along with a few additional drives.
Hey there! This could be a fun experiment, but I’m new to dual booting and want to avoid mistakes. My PC runs Windows 10 Pro on an SSD with four other storage options. I recently got a new SSD just for Linux. I need to keep both my D and F drives available from both systems. Should I set up a specific procedure or just switch drives manually each time I change OS?
You can easily link the D and F drives after setting up Linux. No additional steps are needed during installation—just mount them once you're in Linux. Regarding dual boot setup, could you share your intended operating system? Also, is your Windows drive formatted with MBR or GTP? A guide on checking the format is available online.
You're planning to use Ubuntu since CUDA drivers are fully supported, which is great for TensorFlow work. All your drives are on GTP (4 and 8TB). Yes, you can install Linux normally and just plug in the drives, then choose the OS drive from the boot menu.
Yes it's possible by disconnecting drives. I would only recommend this if windows is booting in BIOS mode though. One small addition, if windows does not immediately show up in your grub menu on boot. You might need to boot into Ubuntu first and run the following command "sudo update-grub" This should add windows as a menuentry to grub. I windows boots in UEFI mode I would suggest the following: I pressume you want to use your entire new ssd for linux. When installing Ubuntu (with all drives connected) you will be given the choice of installation type. Here you should pick "Something else" this indicates you want to define your partitions yourself. After that you'll be greeted by a window where you can browse your drives and create partitions. Here you can also find a dropdown that sais "device for bootloader installation", in this dropdown you can either select your windows drive or your new drive. - If you choose to select your windows drive, the installer will install (without touching the windows bootloader) the grub bootloader to the efi partition on your windows drive. this is the way I usually do things and has as consecuence that all bootloaders are in the same place. This however has as downside, might your windows drive ever fail. you will also lose the bootloader for linux and will have to restore it (you don't lose any data, but the process of reinstalling a bootloader isn't a fun one) - If you choose to select your new drive, the installer wil create a new EFI partition on your new drive and install the grub bootloader onto that. This has in my opinion the undesired effect of bootloaders being all over the place. this might be a good choice if either, you want some more redundancy in case your windows drive fails, you don't trust the installer near your windows bootloader or you simply just prefer this way. On to creating the actual partitions, you can decide for yourself what you would like, however ill give you a simple example: Swap partition with the size of your ram And a ext4 partition with mount point / that fills out the rest of the drive. When you press next, the installer will ask you to confirm your changes so you can double check. and if you accept you should be good to go. After this process you should go into your uefi and select ubuntu as your prefered uefi bootloader. Hopefully this awnsers your question. If you have any more questions feel free to contact me.
Hey, I had a tough week and couldn’t replay everything. You mentioned installing Ubuntu as you explained, but there’s a minor issue. My Windows SSD is on an M.2 SSD hidden behind my GPU in a water-cooled hard drive case... I tried disabling the M.2 slot in the BIOS, but now it has to be done every time I want to switch OS.