[SOLVED] How to install Linux to an empty HDD which houses the EFI partition of my win11 installation?

[alkanepapi]

Hello! I own a Lenovo Legion y520 with an SSD (on which win11 is currently installed) and an empty HDD (or so I thought). I've been wanting to flash Ubuntu on the empty HDD for some time now, so I decided I'd give it a go. Upon opening the disk management utility though, I found that the HDD that I thought was empty houses the EFI partition for my win11 installation. I do not know how this happened. Is it okay for me to directly flash Ubuntu from my USB stick and choose the 'erase disk and install' option? Will this wipe out my EFI partition and render my laptop un-bootable? I'd appreciate all the help I can get, thanks in advance!

these are my disks.

 

[kerberos_20]

if your windows is using that efi partition, hmm ye, windows will stop booting
but you can wipe it, install linux and in grub add windows as multiboot option, efi boot files for windows you can take from windows installation media, bcd store should be able to repair itself, so i wouldnt worry about that one

 

[alkanepapi]

if your windows is using that efi partition, hmm ye, windows will stop booting
but you can wipe it, install linux and in grub add windows as multiboot option, efi boot files for windows you can take from windows installation media, bcd store should be able to repair itself, so i wouldnt worry about that one

so, after seeing this, I used diskpart to check whether that EFI partition is being used by windows or not.
this is what it said
so based on this, is it okay to flash that drive with Linux now?

 

[kerberos_20]

diskpart wont tell you if its used by windows or not, but disk management will tell you if ts used for boot or not

 

[alkanepapi]

diskpart wont tell you if its used by windows or not, but disk management will tell you if ts used for boot or not

diskpart wont tell you if its used by windows or not, but disk management will tell you if ts used for boot or not

alright! also is the fact that my winload.efi on my ssd and not my hdd of any relevance here? as in, does that mean windows is not using my hdd to boot at all?

 

[kerberos_20]

go to bios and see which drive it boots from or disconnect your hdd and see if ssd boots