Question Dual drives for dual booting Linux and Windows - - - questions on bootloaders and partitioning ?

[ITQuest]

As outlined in this thread, I am trying to figure out the best way to dual boot from two separate drives on a laptop (Edit: both drives are M.2 SSD, in case it makes a difference). The devil is in the detail, being that since on a laptop removing one drive physically during installation would be somewhat of a problem, it would be good to find some solution which does not include it.

The suggestion was made that the Linux OS is simply installed on the second drive 'ignoring' the presence of the first, however, quoting from the original thread,

This thread (again discussing Mint) talks about the installer having a bug that puts the bootloader in the first EFI partition it finds instead of where you tell it. You'll want to know if whatever installer you use has a bug like that or not. The fourth post there describes using gparted to disable the EFI/Boot flags on the Win drive - it's not the same as disconnecting it as the software can still write to the drive but it's meant to prevent the installer putting the bootloader in the wrong place. After the installation, the flags need to be re-enabled.

and, form my reply,

In fact, yes - it is a flavour of Linux, namely, CashyOS, which is said to use the Calamares installer. Mint, on the other hand, as per, e.g., this thread (post #3) is said to use an installer called Ubiquity, I am not sure how related the two are. Also, it speaks of Grub bootloader, I mean to use rEFInd (for completeness of information - with a BTRFS filesystem), I am not sure how much of a difference this would make regarding installation.

So, my first question - using the configuration outlined above (Calamares + fEFInd), would it be safe to 'install directly', or would some additional steps still need to be taken, and if so, what, and, in all, would there be any special recommendations to follow while installing?

Second, regarding partitioning, to quote again,

Which also brings us to the question of partition layout, which is probably a separate topic, but briefly - I have come across opinions that for an SSD and 16 or more GB of RAM a swap partition is not necessary, and I have both, so I suppose I don't need to set one up? Also, it is said that since BTRFS creates subvolumes, similar to partitioning, there would be no need for, e. g., a separate home partition, either? Especially keeping in mind possible furure resizing (I might want to give Linux more space later), it is maybe better to have fewer partitions?

thus, what would be a 'recommended' partition layout (the distribution Wiki recommends one boot partition of size 2048 MiB and one root of at least 20000), would there be a point to create a separate home partition, for example? Would there be any other suggestions/good practices to follow partition-wise?

Hoping I am wording my questions clearly and please let me know if additional information is necessary,

Thanks.

 

[cruisetung]

It's better to avoid messing with Winodws & Linux boot loaders. Way too many times you will be screwed.

If your machine is not too slow and don't play game on Linux, use virtual technologies like VMware or VirtualBox. You can create and run as many Linux distros as you want.

 

[dwd999]

Wow, you really like making things difficult. If you go back to my recommendation in the original thread the best way to do this is to do as little as possible. Start with 2 disks, both of which have a GPT partition header and are otherwise unallocated. Run the installer for one system and let it do its thing in terms of creating any necessary partitions. Use Macrium to image the disk onto external storage; it doesn't take that much space. Then wipe the 1st disk. Install the 2nd system on the 2nd disk. Then restore the 1st disk and you're done. Its that easy. You could have been done 5 days ago.

 

[ITQuest]

If your machine is not too slow and don't play game on Linux, use virtual technologies like VMware or VirtualBox. You can create and run as many Linux distros as you want.

Thanks for replying.

The problem is, while the machine is relatively higher-end and shouldn't be that slow, its intended use is as a general-purpose home desktop computer, so the odd game might be played from time to time. This alone, I guess, makes virtualisation not very feasible, at least as a long-term solution.

I have to look for other ways... 😕

Wow, you really like making things difficult.

I would say, it is the 'measure 7 times, cut once' approach - I want to be sure I know what I am doing before I proceed, and besides:

... Start with 2 disks, both of which have a GPT partition header and are otherwise unallocated. ...

As it is, Windows is already installed on one drive and currently 'running' both (I am not sure, but I think I mentioned that in the original thread), so my 'starting point' is a bit different. From here, I imagined I would shrink a partition on the second drive from within Windows, and maybe install on that free space, were it not for the fact that, as it turns out, the Linux Mint installer, for example, tends to write elsewhere. Since the distribution I want to install is not LM and uses another installer - Calamares, to be precise - the question seems to come down to whether or not it would act similarly. If not, and it is possible to install directly, then I imagine it should be faster/simpler than cloning twice?

 

[cruisetung]

There is another fancy way is use Ventoy to boot into VirtualBox created fix size VHD disks that can reside on your Windows NTFS partition. After you create the VHD file , you rename it to VHD.vtoy so Ventoy can recognize using Ventoy plugin.

This way, the Linux OS will be run in a virtual disk but will use the physical machine, including GPU.

Linux and Windows are complete isolated to each other.

A USB drive (should be fast) is required to boot into the OS you want though.

Ventoy

www.ventoy.net

https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html Use this to format USB drive
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_plugson.html a GUI to change Ventoy settings
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html
https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_vlnk.html (for booting into VHD on NTFS volume, not on USB)

 

[ITQuest]

I am somewhat familiar with Ventoy already, since that what I use for the live sessions, but why would this way be better/preferable to a bare metal installation? Also, does the fixed size of the VHDs not preclude resizing the space given to one OS or another?

 

[cruisetung]

If it's better all depends on your personal preference. Advantage is you don't have to deal with GRUB / rEFInd etc boot loaders and partitions.

if you have a 2TB NTFS volume and then you can have let's say 20 Linux distros each with 100GB VHD on it. You don't have to resize any existing volume.

I'm sure you will not settle on one Linux distro from beginning.

 

[dwd999]

As it is, Windows is already installed on one drive and currently 'running' both (I am not sure, but I think I mentioned that in the original thread), so my 'starting point' is a bit different. From here, I imagined I would shrink a partition on the second drive from within Windows, and maybe install on that free space, were it not for the fact that, as it turns out, the Linux Mint installer, for example, tends to write elsewhere. Since the distribution I want to install is not LM and uses another installer - Calamares, to be precise - the question seems to come down to whether or not it would act similarly. If not, and it is possible to install directly, then I imagine it should be faster/simpler than cloning twice?

At some point you're just going to have to bite the bullet and perform a fresh reinstall of Windows. So it might be best to just start planning for that and get it over with.

 

[TerryLaze]

I would say, it is the 'measure 7 times, cut once' approach - I want to be sure I know what I am doing before I proceed, and besides:

Yeah good luck with that...no matter how much you read about it, in practice you are gonna hit something new you had no idea about.
VM are also a great way to train on installations, you can install your linux in a VM that already has windows and see what happens.
Added bonus the disk of the VM is a single file that you can copy somewhere else as an backup so if something goes wrong you copy it back and can try something different.

This thread (again discussing Mint) talks about the installer having a bug that puts the bootloader in the first EFI partition it finds instead of where you tell it.

This isn't a bug, this is proper procedure, every OS is supposed to use the same BCD store (Boot Configuration Data) and that BCD is supposed to be on the first disk that the bios sees.
This is also another way to do it, if your bios allows you to change the order of the m.2 drives then you can put the second one on top to install linux on so that it will write grub on that disk and then change it back so that you boot into windows again.
And then add linux to the windows boot menu or whatever.

 

[Moonstick2]

This isn't a bug, this is proper procedure, every OS is supposed to use the same BCD store (Boot Configuration Data) and that BCD is supposed to be on the first disk that the bios sees.

In the situation where a computer is being set up with a bootloader and the ability to choose the OS on boot, yes. The situation here though is that the OP wants the two OSs completely separate on their respective drives to the extent the laptop could run with either drive absent. The laptop would always boot to one OS, and the other OS only accessed by going into BIOS and choosing the boot device.



I still say removing the Win drive is the simplest and most foolproof method of achieving this. From this video it's just a matter of removing the back of the laptop to get to the drives:

1) Remove screws.
2) Remove back.
3) Remove Win drive.
4) Replace back but not screws.
5) Install Linux.
6) Check everything seems okay.
7) Remove back.
8) Replace Win drive.
9) Replace back.
10) Check both drives can be booted from and both OSs run without issue.
11) Replace screws if all is good.