Want to dual boot windows/linux on a ssd/hdd configuration
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Want to dual boot windows/linux on a ssd/hdd configuration
I have a small ssd (240 GB) and a 1TB hdd. I want to use the ssd to store anything related to Windows (os and other stuff like games) and also the linux bootloader (so linux boots faster). And I want my hdd space to be for linux stuff (like the fedora os, linux packages, etc).
Can you help me do this as i'm a completely noob on dual-booting. Thanks in advance!
PS: I'll be dual-booting windows 10 and fedora 28.
Distribution: Currently: OpenMandriva. Previously: openSUSE, PCLinuxOS, CentOS, among others over the years.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mafiaskafia
I have a small ssd (240 GB) and a 1TB hdd. I want to use the ssd to store anything related to Windows (os and other stuff like games) and also the linux bootloader (so linux boots faster). And I want my hdd space to be for linux stuff (like the fedora os, linux packages, etc).
Can you help me do this as i'm a completely noob on dual-booting. Thanks in advance!
PS: I'll be dual-booting windows 10 and fedora 28.
I must say I'm a little confused by your post. I'm thinking that you wish dual-boot Windows and Linux and have a partition that both systems can access ?
Install Windows FIRST or you will not be able to start Linux, if you do it the other way around.
You would need to format your "common" partition with a file system that's supported under both Linux and Windows. (eg. FAT32, exFAT, NTFS) You may need to install the ntfs-3g drivers depending on you're Linux distribution, if you plan on using NTFS for your "common" partition.
It isn't clear that you have windows installed. Was it pre-installed? If so, it is almost certainly UEFI and you will need Fedora installed EFI. If it is not installed, you need to decide whether you are going to use EFI/GPT and install both systems the same. Have you checked the Fedora site/forums as they generally have pretty decent documentation. If you want windows on the SSD and Fedora on the 1TB drive, that can certainly be done but you won't be able to use any of the auto install options such as Install Alongside.
Distribution: Slackware (current), FreeBSD, Win10, It varies
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windows 10 OS itself takes ~30GB , hibernation, and recovery partitions and room to grow for updates a few more GBs
Linux OS ~5 to 10 GB
the rest is needed by you to calculate size of share partition between Linux and Windows type NTFS and your /home for Linux, and your user for Windows.
I have a small ssd (240 GB) and a 1TB hdd. I want to use the ssd to store anything related to Windows (os and other stuff like games) and also the linux bootloader (so linux boots faster). And I want my hdd space to be for linux stuff (like the fedora os, linux packages, etc).
Can you help me do this as i'm a completely noob on dual-booting. Thanks in advance!
PS: I'll be dual-booting windows 10 and fedora 28.
Similar setup here. My SSD is of 120G though.
I have ~90G of the SSD dedicated to Win 10 (what you see as C: drive) and the HDD has ~700G dedicated to windows (various sizes of D:,E:,F: formatted as NTFS)
Rest, 30G of SSD is dedicated to my primary Linux distribution CentOS 7 (/,/boot and /swap), a /data directory of ~100G out of the HDD. [I'm aware that a separate /boot is not necessary]
Rest of the space from my HDD is reserved for distro-hopping (Currently houses Mint & uses the swap of the SSD).
The multi-boot setup is handled by CentOS' bootloader grub2. And it has ntfs-3g installed (as jsbjsb001 pointed out), so I can access the windows drives easily. However, as my linux partitions are mostly LVM with xfs and ext4, M$ can't see them.
The only challenge I face these days is when M$ pushes big updates to the Win10 (fall creators for example). I have to rely on a live USB to do the upgrading.
So yes, your setup is entirely possible and even seem simpler. Let us know how it goes.
Few decisions that you have to make is -
1. Disk partitioning scheme(MBR vs GPT), I chose the simpler solution, MBR.
2. To UEFI or not to. Again, I chose the simpler option, not to.
Last edited by Honest Abe; 05-28-2018 at 06:05 AM.
you might check if "hardware virtualization" is supported before going "all in" on dual booting - but doing so may require ubuntu - microsoft sites only talk about using ubuntu? also i find that if you can afford it: getting a used pc is (easier) than making hardware dual boot. but booting linux off a usb requires no or nearly no compatibility with windows 10, and you might not notice the lag time.
you might check if "hardware virtualization" is supported before going "all in" on dual booting - but doing so may require ubuntu
Checking if hardware virtualisation is enabled or not does not require Ubuntu, or any OS for that matter. That's misleading.
The checking and enabling/disabling is done at BIOS level.
Quote:
- microsoft sites only talk about using ubuntu?
coz ubuntu is beginner friendly & has a huge,dedicated user base.
@OP, if it helps you, here's my disk partition table..
Code:
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x2c2b618f
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 507906047 253952000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 507906048 712431615 102262784 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3 712431616 1339119615 313344000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4 1339121662 1701619711 181249025 5 Extended
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb5 1339121664 1443979263 52428800 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 1443981312 1543368703 49693696 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 1543370752 1699618815 78124032 83 Linux
/dev/sdb8 1699620864 1701619711 999424 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xcf7354d5
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 1026047 512000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 1026048 184530943 91752448 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 184530944 188725247 2097152 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 188725248 234440703 22857728 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 188729344 220194815 15732736 8e Linux LVM
/dev/sda6 220196864 226537471 3170304 82 Linux swap / Solaris
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