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Old 07-15-2016, 12:11 AM   #1
Steve Franks
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Move working windows HDD to external drive to run mint internally


A somewhat tangential linux question but I reckon this forum may be able to answer it.

I am buying a new laptop which will come with windows of some description. I will replace the disk with an SSD and install mint.

It suits me to occasionally use windows however. But I really cannot be bothered with grub anymore and my SSD will be tiny. It will be sub-optimal to virtualise the windows in VBox et al as MS OEM licences are voided by doing this (unless you have retail or higher classes of windows lic).

Will the windows boot if I drop it into a USB caddy and adjust the boot order?

Win will be on the C: drive when I buy the machine and, if I understand correctly, "C" will be baked into Windows based on the order in which the installer (or more likely, image writer) found drives - drives with a WINDOWS partition - which of course the mint SSD will not have.

If I put the drive into a USB caddy, the linux on the SSD internally will not be a windows partition so will windows still see this drive as C:? I would expect that the hardware will enumerate the internal drive before USB drives though. Will WIndows try to write on my linux drive?

I know I can mess with the drive letters in various ways or clone windows to an external drive but I'd rather spend my time messing with Linux - this is just a convenience for me to have my cake and to eat it too

TIA
 
Old 07-15-2016, 03:05 PM   #2
jefro
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Windows 7 doesn't easily boot off of usb. Windows 10 has for me but I did some messing with it a bit.

It can't hurt to test this as the caddy will only only cost a bit.

The OEM version of windows messes with this whole hal issue usually.

There are some so called Bing copies of Windows 10 out there that claim to be legal and have some restrictions but I did get one and it worked. Even updated.
 
Old 07-15-2016, 03:48 PM   #3
beachboy2
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Smile

Steve Franks,

Welcome to LQ.

On the subject of buying a new laptop, I would avoid getting a HP Envy 15-ah150sa or anything with an AMD video card:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ll-4175584667/

I would also generally recommend using an Intel CPU.

Do use Google to make sure your new laptop is generally compatible with Linux before purchase (e.g “Acer XY-123G Ubuntu 16.04”).

Sometimes obtaining suitable Linux drivers for things such as wifi and video cards can be a real pain in the rear end.

Happy hunting.
 
Old 07-15-2016, 04:36 PM   #4
yancek
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It will make a difference which windows you use, 7, 8 10? Also, whether you are going to use UEFI or MBR.
How are you planning to boot your Linux without Grub? There are a few systems which use Lilo or you could use bcdedit to boot Linux from windows but that is a pretty convoluted process which will still need the appropriate files in the IPL of the Linux partition.

Windows is designed NOT to install to a usb so I would expect some problems but it might work as indicated above. Never tried myself.

Windows will see the Linux drive as a "healthy partition" and likely nothing more. It won't assign a drive letter to any Linux partition and no you won't be able to write to the Linux partition with a default install of any windows.
 
Old 07-17-2016, 04:28 AM   #5
Steve Franks
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Thanks guys.

I am in the happy position that i have been able to borrow a work latop of the same model i intend to buy and i know for certain that mint will work. I cant however, blow away the corporate soe in the interests of experimentation so i cant go there yet! I will pot the final result here soon.

Thanks for the point re : HAL jefro. I had not considered that.

Beachboy2, i will go for the i7 6600u. I want to run virtualbox and i think this will suit without the added cost of the quad core versions.

Yancek, i did not phrase my post well : i will of couse have grub but i cannot be bothered with dual booting. I am just a bit over the hassle and i think virtualisatiion in some respects obsoletes it.. Apropos uefi vs mbr, i have not made up my mind but my reading suggests the ubuntu family all implement uefi well so i should be fine either way.

I should say by way of introduction that i have played with linux from time to time but my work and personal laptops for the past 15 years plus have all run solaris. It hurts to put solaris (desktop) away. Its like i'm cheating on my wife! I hope to have a good affair with linux ;-)
 
Old 07-24-2016, 07:05 PM   #6
Steve Franks
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Well I have made the obvious empirical test and am happy to report this works.

Some more digging found that from Win 8 onwards (not 100% sure there) windows writes a signature to the boot record based on the unique ID of the disk (was not able to find out on what the ID is based). This signature is written in the windows registry with the corresponding drive letter that was assigned according to windows rules when the OS was installed.

Thereafter, if you boot from this disk, it will continue to use the same drive letter, even if you move it to another slot.

And mint happily runs internally.
 
Old 07-25-2016, 11:36 AM   #7
bimboleum
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Hi,
FYI, I run linux on all my laptops (thinkpads which come with OEM windows installed).
As soon as I get a new one I blow away windows and install Slackware. I then install windows in a virtual machine.

I always use the product code off the glitzy certificate pasted onto the laptop! Granted this does not work automagically. You have to call the MS automated phone activation, but that seems to work just fine.

cheers
pete

pete hilton
saruman@ruvolo-hilton.org
 
  


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