Want to dual boot windows/linux on a ssd/hdd configuration

mafiaskafia · 05-24-2018, 07:08 AM

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.

jsbjsb001 · 05-24-2018, 08:26 AM

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.

yancek · 05-24-2018, 11:55 AM

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.

BW-userx · 05-24-2018, 02:34 PM

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.

Honest Abe · 05-28-2018, 05:51 AM

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.

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.

X-LFS-2010 · 05-28-2018, 09:04 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.

i'm also a noob at dual boot though. just ideas

Honest Abe · 05-28-2018, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by X-LFS-2010

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