[SOLVED] Dualboot windows linux on two drives

[Lukas98]

Hello, I want to make dualboot with windows 10 and Linux, both system on separate m2 ssds. My question is following. I only want to use 50gb from the 500gb ssd for linux, and I would like to have remaining 450 as a data drive for windows. Is something like this possible ? I guess partition the second drive but iam not sure.. anyone can help / assist ?

 

[Tanyac]

Possible? - Absolutely!

1. Remove all drives except one of the SSDs. Install Windows 10.
2. Remove the Windows 10 drive and install the other SSD. Install Linux using only as much space as you want for swap space, \, \home etc.
3. Reconnect your Windows SSD and any other drives you disconnected (if any)
4. Use F11 or F12 (Which ever is applicable to your motherboard), to select a boot drive to boot the particular OS you want to use.
5. When you boot from Windows 10 you can go to Computer Management, Disk Management and partition the remaining space on your Linux drive for use with Windows.
6. In your BIOS you may want to set the drive according to which OS you want to use as your default.
7. If Windows 10 has assigned drive letters for any of the Linux partitions you can safely remove the drive letters from Windows (Computer Management, Disk Management), but do this only for the Linux Partitions when you are booted into Windows 10. (hope that makes sense)

I have my system set up like this with 3 x M.2 SSDs. Windows 10, Windows 7 and Linux Mint. Both the Windows 7 and Linux drives have partitions available for Windows 10.

 

[Lukas98]

Question to point 2. - When creating partition for Linux in Linux installer, I should create 3 partitions - / /home and swap right ? After creating these, where to install Linux ? Or how should I partition the drive in the first place ? Thanks for answer

Question to point 6. - Then I just always change the boot order here in bios to boot the system I want right ? I wouldnt like to have any boot manager where I have to click and it takes forever. Or how will the boot look like when the default is windows and when default is linux ?

Thanks for answers

 

[Tanyac]

Depends on what Linux distro you're installing. I use Mint. You should at least have / and swap, but Linux offers a lot of flexibility with this. I create the swap space first, then a partition for / and for /home and that's all (typically 4gb, 32gb and 32gb, but that's just my preferences.

Probably best to post on the Open Source forum for advice on recommendations for Linux.

The boot manager is that provided by your motherboard BIOS. Most BIOSs will let you select your boot priority or boot order, so if you don't press F11/F12 it will boot from the selected drive first. When you want to change OS you restart your PC, press F11 or F12 and select the drive you want to boot from; Since you have each OS on a dedicated drive the boot mangers for each of the OSs are on their respective drives.

 

[Lukas98]

Do I need to partition / and /home separately ? Can I just make swap and / and install Linux on / ? Will it be fine ?