Sometimes when Windows shuts down it never shuts down properly, leaving certain devices in a specific state that may not work properly under Linux. This is why on a dual-boot setup it is recommended to disable Fast Boot in Windows to properly close and reset everything.

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

An extremely good point (if you want to access the Windows drive from Linux). I always have Fast Boot disabled in Windows regardless, and forget that others may leave it on!

@bertblankenstein3738

10 ай бұрын

I recently disabled the fast boot thing as windows itself was having problems recognizing the dock. Have been trouble free since.

@notjustforhackers4252

10 ай бұрын

I was going to comment this exact thing. Disable the settings in Windows with msconfig and then go to the boot tab. I do tend to also run shutdown /s /f /t0 at the Windows command prompt before switching/installing.

@dianaalyssa8726

10 ай бұрын

I disable fast boot and give about 5 seconds to choose where to boot from. I like that installing Arco/Mint last usually gives me GRUB.

@aman4805

9 ай бұрын

Will it make the booting time slower? Also Is it also recommended if you aren't dual booting ? As I have heard that since the windows never properly shuts down your pc'c performance may degrade overtime but A simple restart once in a while will do equally good job.

Being able to use both Linux and Windows and not giving up one another is really nice. Both have their perks so dual booting is the way to go for me.

@wcdeich4

10 ай бұрын

I personally had a Windows Linux dual boot laptop crash when a Windows update could not complete due to the GRUB boot loader not being compatible with the Windows automatic upgrade to Windows 10. I have to recommend a virtuall machine. You can have a Windows VM inside Linux or a Linux VM inside Windows. Or just use separate hardware.

@berkantari981

10 ай бұрын

@@wcdeich4 if GRUB crashes, I could run Boot repair from the live USB and voila! I had a thing like that, I was stuck at GRUB with no options and just a command line, so I used boot repair.

@johnm2012

10 ай бұрын

​@@wcdeich4The first method shown by Chris (remove the Windows drive while installing Linux) is extremely safe and can't be held responsible for any failed Windows updates because the only bootloader on the Windows drive is the Microsoft one. That said, I have more than enough accumulated computer hardware that I don't need to dual boot anymore.

@chrisschembari2486

10 ай бұрын

​@@wcdeich4the problem with a VM is that the virtual OS has to interface with a very limited set of virtual hardware - generic Intel chips. Does that ever limit the abilities of the virtual OS to do stuff it could easily manage if that OS was running on bare metal?

@JCO2002

10 ай бұрын

Run Windows inside Linux with a virtual machine. Much safer, no MS spyware in your kernel.

If you're going to dual boot, the dual drive method is the smart choice. Great tutorial!

@Robbie-mw5uu

10 ай бұрын

why

@cldream

10 ай бұрын

I would say it would have been true before UEFI and Secure Boot showed up. Now Microsoft could easily block it by enforcing the latter.

@anon_y_mousse

10 ай бұрын

@@cldream True, and that's why no one should use Windows. I would say lock the BIOS or boot loader or something, but Microsoft has the keys and can bypass it all anyway. In fact, it'd be better to not even use a modern computer and instead build your own from scratch components, but no one has the resources to actually do that. So your options are either install a lot of OSS and hope for the best or become a luddite. I'm sure most would call this paranoia, but is it really paranoid if they actually are out to get you?

@cldream

10 ай бұрын

@@anon_y_mousse Secure Boot is just that - They can use the UEFI, lock it down to JUST use Microsoft keys. So most of the Linux distros would be out (unless if you want to use a bootloader signed with Microsoft keys.)

@anon_y_mousse

10 ай бұрын

@@cldream That's what I'm saying. Even if you lock it yourself to prevent tampering, Microsoft can still modify settings and do whatever they want.

The subtle art of making complex things easy! Thank you for this essential introduction...

Your tutorials are always very easy to follow and detailed

I really appreciate you giving multiple options! Method B is so much easier since my Windows SSD is buried underneath a GPU, but with most guides, I would have ended up doing a lot of extra work for nothing. Thanks!

Unfortunately, most people don't have the desire to trade with the intricacies involved in dual booting, and neither have that know-how or the desire to understand the know-how, hence, they usually avoid setting up a dual boot environment. You've put a lot of effort and time into making this video, and that shouldn't go unappreciated. Accurate and informative. Greetings!

@5argetech56

10 ай бұрын

See my comment! 🙂

@Meowyyru

7 ай бұрын

Thank you

Your tutorials are AMAZING. I love the way you don't torture us with long waiting periods between steps and only point out the things we really tuned in to learn. Thank you

Excellent! I have always been suspicious of the long term integrity of the grub menu. I don't have any negative experience with it, but it just seems better to keep the OS's separated into their own HD's in these days of cheap SSD's. I hope your videos never disappear because they are always easy to follow with your step-by-step instructions. I really prefer your unboxing hardware videos, but these OS upgrade videos are very necessary in these days of forced upgrades. You do a nice job of mixing various types of videos together so that Sunday mornings are like Christmas morning...I just never know what type of wonderful computer video awaits me!

Been looking for guidance on this subject. This is the best presentation I've seen. Answered every question I had. Clear and concise. Presented in a friendly, relaxed and encouraging manner. All the attributes of an excellent teacher. Thank you Chris. Keep up the good work. 👍

Thank you for showing this dual boot method. I never new this even existed. I use both Linux and windows on a regular basis and this method will make things so much simpler. Your tutorials are always so informative and very easy to understand. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris! A few years ago, I had a dual boot single drive system which failed due to a boot corruption. The dual-drive/dual-boot method is my preferred method and it works well. Great video and content

Thank you so much for all of your great teaching, Chris! I have now successfully set up my laptop as a dual drive, dual boot, Linux and Windows system. I cloned my original Windows M.2 SSD to a 2.5 SATA SSD, installed a new blank M.2 SSD and installed Linux on same. I also went into BIOS and set Linux as default boot drive, and Windows works perfectly using F12 to access Windows Boot Manager. I really wish I'd had you for some of my classes in High School as I would have learned a lot more!

Not often I get ahead of you, but we've been doing this dual boot configuration for literally years. As usual, you explain things very well indeed - MS Windows installed first is crucial.

You read my mind. I was just about to wipe my windows 10 and do a fresh install and then I heard Debian is really good now. So now you have me sold on Dual Drive Dual Boot. Love your work.

@sbrazenor2

10 ай бұрын

With the current price of storage, I always just get another drive for systems I want to run. You can get an SSD to tinker with for like $20 now that's reasonable for a Linux test drive. Even M.2 prices are getting really good.

@klaxoncow

10 ай бұрын

Yeah, if you've got the capacity, then dual boot dual drive is the superior option. Because, basically, both operating systems live on their own hard drives and "never the twain shall meet". They don't get in each other's way at all. And "the hardware method" - where you literally completely remove the Windows drive to install Linux - does make setting up dual boot so much safer. If Windows is not even connected to the system in any way, then it's just not physically possible to accidentally overwrite it or anything. I don't mind the GRUB menu myself. But it's better to use "the hardware method" and ensure it's only installed on the Linux drive, because then it's kept out of the way of Windows. Which does have a habit of overwriting GRUB and corrupting it. (This is Microsoft being anti-competitive arseholes. Because operating systems are totally labelled on the disk and Windows could simply read this, recognise that it's Linux - as Linux uses a standard well-known signature - and then leave it alone. We totally know that Microsoft could do this, because Windows does perform a scan of your hard drives when installing to recognise if you've got multiple Windows versions installed, and then leaves those other versions of Windows alone. It absolutely could 100% do this with Linux as well. But Microsoft don't want other operating systems being "room mates" with Windows, so it deliberately acts like an arsehole and corrupts GRUB. They're hoping that you'll blame GRUB for corrupt, not Windows for being the actual guilty party that broke it. Sneaky sods, eh? But this is demonstrably nonsense, as GRUB works just fine when Windows isn't there and doesn't corrupt. And if you use "the hardware method" so that GRUB is nowhere near Windows, it also operates just fine with zero corruption issues. To be clear, Windows is the cause - it literally just overwrites the boot sector with its own boot loader blindly, without checking if there's anything already there. But they're hoping - and from the way people talk about GRUB that I've seen, they very often get away with this shady behaviour - that you'll assume GRUB is the guilty party. But, for the record, it isn't. Which, as I say, is demonstrably proven by removing the Windows drive, so GRUB is 100% on the other non-Windows drive, and you'll find that neither interferes with the other and it's 100% fine and dandy, with no corruption issues at all.) So remove Windows. Install Linux (and GRUB) on a second hard drive. Re-connect Windows. Then you have the option to, as in this video, boot to Windows and use the boot menu to switch to Linux. But as I primarily use Linux and only rarely bother with Windows, I boot to the Linux drive and have the GRUB menu, where Linux is the default option and Windows is there as a secondary option. (Note that this is the one thing that needs to be sorted with "the hardware method". Because Linux and GRUB are installed without Windows being connected, GRUB won't have Windows in its menu. But you can, with both drives installed, have GRUB re-scan your computer, picking up both operating systems and updating the menu to include both. Indeed, though there's nothing wrong with the BIOS boot menu, I use GRUB because it's configurable. I've got a nice background image and have changed the font and font size, and so forth, with mine. There's a nice utility "GRUB Customizer" in the repositories that is a GUI app that lets you customise it all and you can re-scan the menu - or even manually edit it however you wish - there. Default GRUB is a bit bland, but you can make it all nice and fancy, if you want.)

@dianaalyssa8726

10 ай бұрын

Used Debian earlier this year, it's super stable, what I love about it. Plenty of DEs to choose from.

An excellent video, covering all the bases, well narrated, with screen captures of exactly what we needed to see. Well done!

Very helpful Chris! I've been dual booting Windows and Mint for probably 8 years, but from the same drive. Afraid it will be corrupted at some point but thankfully it's been okay. Originally I did try two different drives but I couldn't get it to work. No idea why. I think I will try again soon using this video as reference! You are always so clear... so much Linux documentation on the web is hopelessly confusing for so many of us!

Fantastic video! Dual-drive is the way to go. Thank you Chris for covering this topic and extremely well-thought-out process.👍

Thank you for explaining the various options. I like your suggestion of disconnecting windows and avoid installing Grub. I especially appreciate your time editing to only show us the important points.

Thanks for this - I have borked several windows pc's installing linux OS on the same drive - didn't realize dual drive-dual boot was even an option! Your videos are absolutely top drawer! Please carry on - best regards from Canada!

Years ago, I purchased a 4-bay hot-swappable SATA drive unit that fits in a 5-1/4 drive bay. I currently have 4 different operating systems I boot into.

I continue to learn much from your videos. Your build series of a couple years ago inspired my first build attempt (2 more since) and today's provided the confidence to convert one of them to a dual boot configuration. Thanks for all your efforts.

I've got to commend you for the sheer amount of work you've done here Prof, thank you. I use a multidrive dualboot myself.

This is really the cleanest and most stress-free method of a dual OS setup. It greatly reduces the likelihood of things going sideways.

A good one, as I'd never thought of doing a dual boot with 2 drives before!

Another great tutorial that doesn't screw around. Love you, Chris! Sorry that I don't have a whole lot to say this week.

I have used a dual drive - dual boot setup for years and never looked back. I primarily use Linux Mint and only have a Windows install for a few proprietary software pieces, that refuse to run under Linux. Perfect!

I just watched this video last night. I wanted to thank you for the information and to let you know that this also works perfectly with an external USB drive and my laptop. I will admit I was a little bit nervous opening up my laptop for the first time (really not the same as a desktop) but it really wasn’t too difficult. I now have Windows 11 and Linux Mint running just fine without grub making a mess of things. Thank you very much!😊

Greetings Dear Chris, Have been doing dual booting since winXp but still learning something new from you😊! Really glad I didn't pass this by. Yes, my distro of choice is normally leaning towards Linux Mint even to this day. When I finally swapped from WinXp to Linux Mint, windows became 2nd class citizen on my Virtualbox VM. Bought a Dell Precision 17" Laptop about 2yrs back tt came with Ubuntu. Sadly never get used to ubuntu; to presever ubuntu in its original form in the nvme that was pre-installed, I installed Mint on an external HP 1tb SSD. Now I am opened to another whole new world of Dual Booting + VMs on Mint. How about that😊! Really enjoyed all your vids though pretty bz and hv to miss some. Cheers! 🍷🍾

I'm bookmarking this video! I needed it 2yrs ago already. Great show, Professor...🇺🇸 😎👍☕

Hi, I'm from Indonesia, delighted to see the tutorial you provided. I hope your KZread channel continues to flourish. Thank you very much....🙏

So many of your videos are a treasure of concise, no-nonsense information! I just got another little HP ProDesk Mini PC and was setting it up with Windows (M.2) and Kubuntu Linux (SSD). My thought was I could just boot from a live USB and install Linux without removing the Windows drive, (I haven't done a full linux install in a while) but in the back of my mind I'm thinking "I don't want it to mess with my Windows drive at all." A quick look on YT and yours is the first video on the subject to come up! From a source I certainly trust- and sure enough, your advice couldn't be better! Definitely glad I removed the M.2 first then installed Linux- now a perfect dual boot. A little information goes a LONG way toward not messing up a dual boot system!

Actually, you can set up more boot drives by installing the OS of you choice with the other drives disconnected and then reattaching the original drives as Chris demonstrated. I have done this with four SATA drives on one system with WIN7, WIN10, Ubuntu and Zorin all installed on separate SATA SSDs.

Very impressive. This gives more bang for the buck in increasing the productivity of the computer. We found an old desktop at home that was sitting idle and are thinking of refurbishing it ourselves and may just configure it with both Linux and Windows.

Straightforward, Covering everything necessary and straight to the point.

The snappy editing is great, with gaps to hear the keyboard, beeps, and peripherals being inserted/removed, with the shot changing in synchrony to either the narration or sounds. It's very enjoyable, addictive even.

I think dual boot method B would work for me. Having Linux Mint on a separate SSD would make sense to me. I think I remember you mentioning that dual boot LM into Windows is problematic so the install above would work better keeping both OS's separate and still usable. Thanks, Chris, take care, and look forward to the next video.

Another consideration is the use of a hard drive switch so that one can select multiple operating systems without having to go into bias settings when switching over. I use one with four selectors to switch to my desired operating system prior to booting up.

AHHH! This is something i have wanted to try for years! AWESOME video Mr. Barnatt!

I dual boot Windows and NixOs currently. NixOs is probably the most remarkable distro I've ever used, and really deserves a video on here. Not only does it use a single config file to build the whole OS so it can be reproduced anywhere and rebuilt at runtime, it uses a clever library versioning system to solve any dependancy issues with packages you install, virtually eliminating the need for self contained apps like flatpak and snap. I think it's probably the future of Linux and if someone builds a slick GUI for modifying that config file it would make for a very smart desktop distro indeed.

Very timely! This is exactly what I need to do ... And I wanted to avoid GRUB and sharing a drive. Thank you!!

Always wondered what was the best option to dual boot into Windows and Linux, but now I know!!!! dual drives! and removing windows drive during installation!!!

I left windows about 15 years ago completely, but sometimes I need it because of some quirky applications I am forced to use such as programming an alarm system, e-signature app etc. This happens less but sometimes virtual machine do not cut it. Good tutorial.

I've been dual booting since 1998 - but only recently have realised, since Win 10 that this is now the preferred method. The traditional method takes forever with WIN 10 or 11 installed.

You can get around the GRUB going on the NVME drive with the connected installer by setting up a separate ESP partition on the SATA drive. Instead of assigning all the space on the SATA to the root partition, make another partition of type ESP (1 for GUID, though 11 for Basic Microsoft Data or c for MBR FAT32 normally work depending on your UEFI implementation), and set the mountpoint in the installer to /boot/efi. I also like to distro-hop, so, I'll typically do a 128MiB EFI partition, a 48GiB root, and the rest on /home, as I use podman and most other things I use will eat home space, and 48GiB tends to do nicely for a bunch of installable packages. That way I can just reinstall with another distro over the root partition if I decide to try another Linux distro. Glad you kept it simple and repeatable for everyone!

@thedoofguy5707

10 ай бұрын

What you are suggesting doesn't work with Linux Mint. I have tried several times, it failed every single time. I selected the SATA drive as device for boot loader installation, I selected the Windows EFI partition and changed it from "use as EFI partition" to "do not use partition", created a new EFI partition on the SATA drive and selected that, set its mount point to /boot/efi, and the LM installer ignored all of that.

Excellent and very pedagogic video. On a laptop, I usually use Gparted before installing ubuntu based distros. I ensure that the Windows EFI partition (the one used to boot windows) has flags ESP and Boot unchecked to avoid Ubuntu insisting on putting Grub on the first drive. Also do not forget to disable fast boot in Windows to ensure a real restart and not a hybrid sleep/boot

@zaidshaikh9245

6 ай бұрын

Can you please elaborate, whenever I'm trying method B... That is, installing Ubuntu on an external SSD (without removing internal SSD of laptop having Win10), the GRUB gets installed on windows partition and when I remove the external SSD, windows cannot boot displaying a grub bootloader with minimal bash screen

I'd like to have seen the topic of dual booting with Secure Boot brought up but that's totally understandable because it's such a pain fiddling with keys and what not! Thank you for this guide!

Excellent explanation, I love dual boots and you covered the finer points that folks overlook. I may consider the Dual OS multiple drive in future though thanks to this!

Having to admit that I have messed up several times trying to set up a Grub dual boot system on several computers in the past, I can say that this is definitely safer and a better option for me. The hardware one seems to be the most fool-proof.

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

Greetings James. :)

@Zeldon567

10 ай бұрын

For future reference, if at some point you have issues with grub again, a tool called boot repair can be used on a live usb to quickly and easily fix a corrupt grub bootloader. Grub customizer can be used to change boot order etc. Both have a gui and are very easy to use. Got me out of a jam several times where I otherwise would have had to reformat or learn how to fix grub the hard way via the command line.

@Schultz-wc6xy

10 ай бұрын

@@ExplainingComputersplease admin. I’ve issue with my browser on Kali Linux. Kindly help me out by instruct me on how to fix it.

As usual, a great tutorial. Thanks!

I have learned about some of the disadvantages the hard way. Thanks for educating the public and saving them time and frustration

I wasted hours trying to do just this and wished i had found it before i started. Absolute doddle once you know how, so thank you for sharing your knowledge so freely. Ted.

Seeing as you've delved into the "something else" installation option, Chris, it'd be good to have a video delving into its more interesting possibilities. My favourite one being that you can install "/" on one hard drive, then install "/home" on another hard drive. So that your data and settings are on a different physical drive to your OS. This makes reinstalling the OS so much simpler. You can, indeed, do similarly to the "hardware method" here and remove your "/home" drive from the machine completely, reinstall the OS and then remount your "/home" drive with a one-liner in the "fstab" config file. Indeed, you can reinstall the OS should it get corrupt, or upgrade to the latest version of the OS, or even switch distros entirely. And all you have to do is remove your "data drive", do whatever you need to do, re-connect the "data drive" and add one line in "fstab" to re-moun it back to "/home". Then all your data and settings are already right there. Typically, when you install apps, like Chrome or Thunderbird or whatever, because your data's already there in your "/home" drive, they'll just immediately spring back to life as they previously were. No need to copy things or mess with config files. The app sees your settings in your "/home" folder and just uses them. It's quite magical. To be able to reinstall an OS, and then just "sudo apt install chromium" and your immediately back where you were, as if nothing happened. You just reinstall the apps with your package manager and they're immediately back to how it was. No copying and, removing your "data drive" while you mess with the OS, a vastly safer way to do things, as your data can't be wiped if the drive is not even physically connected. It's also a good way to move your data to a new machine. Pull out the "data drive", connect to the new machine and you've got all your data and settings. I mean, it's also possible - thanks to the VFS - to stick any directory on any drive you like. So, you know, you could pop "/etc" or "/usr" or whatever onto its own drive too, if you wanted to. When I was messing with a cluster of Linux servers at work, I actually mounted "/home" over NFS, so that it was the same home directory for every node in the cluster. This was beautiful for moving data between nodes - copy it to my home directory and then login on another node in the cluster, and it's the same home directory with the files there. Just copy the file from that home directory to wherever it needs to go. It was the choice way to ensure all the nodes in the cluster had the same identical setup, as I made it work on one node then copied the config files to "/home" which is accessible to them all. The power of the VFS is immense, yet it's so little mentioned. Hence, you know, a video on the subject and all the mad things you can do with it would be great. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. p.s. the lack of anything comparable in Windows is a large part of why, sorry, I can never go back to Windows again now. It's just so "crippled" in comparison, where these things either aren't possible or you have to pay hundreds for some often-flaky third-party app to do it. But, on Linux, it's in the kernel itself, so it's free and is guaranteed to be there, regardless of distro.

@lewisse_8966

10 ай бұрын

I did not know that you could install the home and setting directories in separate locations from the OS. That is incredibly useful. Thank you for the information! I'll need to take some time to learn about messing around with my fstab.

@RK-xj1dl

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Is it possible to install /home directory on a removable USB stick?

@ricsip

10 ай бұрын

@@lewisse_8966 Linux had this kind of flexibility since 30years.

@lewisse_8966

10 ай бұрын

@@ricsip That's fantastic! Still learning what Linux has to offer coming from Windows and I'm sure there's more it has to offer.

@Videobe

10 ай бұрын

Yes, I was thinking of doing the same myself, except just with separate partitions. I think this is more the key point here than necessarily having to be separate drives?

Thanks for the informative video! Putting Linux on its own drive with the others disconnected during installation definitely seems like the safest option without really sacrificing convenience.

I feel like this style of videos belong in the early 90’ but they’re very informative. Keep up to good work

When I first tried Linux, I tried dual-booting with Windows. I messed up pretty bad, and decided to commit to just using Linux. I don't use Windows anymore, but if I was going to again, I would install it on an entirely separate drive like you demonstrated. My new motherboard allows for 3 M.2 SSDs, 1 for the CPU and 2 for the chipset. I would put Windows on one of the drives connected to the chipset.

@cooladi002

9 ай бұрын

what are the difference in the SSD for the CPU, and SSD for the chipset. is there a performance change ?

I used to do this years ago, but I found myself using Windows less and less. The odd Windows program I needed worked mostly OK with wine, sometimes a VM. I imagine if you're using something like photoshop or you're an avid gamer it's a must, but for me there's no need.

I followed your instructions for dual drive, dual boot, and it works like a charm. I have a Dell machine, so, I just hit F12, to get to the boot choice screen, and choose which one U want, Windows 10 will boot by default. I'm dual booting MX Linux, and Windows 10. Thank you.

LOL, I could have used this video earlier this year. With a PC that already had Win-10, I installed Linux on a seperate drive and set up Dual Boot. I did use other Explaining Computer videos for help. But, I just fumbled and bumbled my way through it and ended up with the Grub boot prompt. I actually like that prompt, but was disturbed when I learned that it could be corrupted by a Windows update. That shouldn't be a problem, since I am using Win-10 and refuse to update to Win-11, so I won't be getting many more updates. In fact, it is for that reason that I finally jumped into the Linux world which is something I've wanted to do for many years. Christopher, thank you for your wonderful videos. You are an excelent teacher, and I appreciate your humor, too.

I have a feeling this video is going to get a lot more views with Microsoft's Recall announcement.

@davosam1968

26 күн бұрын

You got me🤣

Excellent video - Thank you Chris. When all around is chaos, having your Sunday video is something to look forward to. Thank you!

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

Thanks for your support -- sorry I missed this earlier. Crazy week!

Bravo! I've been doing dual booting for the last 8yrs. I use a single drive (1TB-M.2-NVMe) and split the drive in half. I use the something else option to install Linux on the unused portion of the HD as a root install. I also install Grub-Customizer to tweak the boot screen and have a nice cat photo when booting up. I also change the OS order to boot Linux first because it is my everyday OS of choice. I have windows 11pro only for Adobe products. You can also change the time for default startup. I go for 5 mins (300 seconds). I also go into windows on a daily basis to check for updates. This way Grub does not get corrupted by a gigantic update in windows! Works for me! 😃

Thanks Chris for a very interesting & thorough explanation! One thing I would add is not only a good backup up but a 'Rescue disk' for Windows!! I've dual booted Windows & Linux on two separate drives for several years & not had too many issues! To help with the boot menu I installed a free program on Windows called 'Easy BCD' where you can set which OS starts first & adjust the time to boot. :)

@loginregional

10 ай бұрын

Tom's Root'n'Boot. And others.

@alanthornton3530

10 ай бұрын

@@loginregional I've just checked out the alternatives, some I'd never heard of but thanks for this :)

@frunavarro

10 ай бұрын

Tx for the tip. BTW, on dual (or even more) boot, on the Linux I can set the sequence of OS initialization and other parameters using a program/app called GRUB CUSTOMIZER which is easy-to-use and also has a graphical interface. No Terminal commands NECESSARY if you want.

@loginregional

10 ай бұрын

@@alanthornton3530 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt

Thanks, excellent teaching, GOD bless you, this has been very helpful.

I use the dual drive with the windows drive removed and then returning the windows drive method. I did the dual drive with grub and I managed to lose Linux mint from the grub menu when I upgraded the version from 20 to 21. It took me a while to find out how to update grub, which you avoid if you remove the windows drive. Thanks for an excellent video.

I didn't even know that I needed this explanation. Thanks for an excellent and simple to follow video.

This is a great video and a great idea for a dual boot system, and it is a lot simpler to implement, however, anytime you have a dual boot of any type one has to always be careful not to inadvertently mess up partitions or files for the non-booted O/S while working from the booted one.

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

Very true.

@Meowyyru

7 ай бұрын

why?

I did the same thing of switching via the bios (F8 in my case). One thing to bear in mind is that you should hold down the shift key when exiting Windows to avoid files being locked for access from the Linux end. At least with Windows 10 which caches things for faster reboot.

@v0id_d3m0n

2 ай бұрын

Or turn off fast startup

Extremely informative and good for those who do not want to mix the necessary Microsoft operating system that one may need for various programs with Linux.Especially those that may want to use an old,unsupported Windows system. Just disconnect the ethernet while using the Win7,XP or Vista drive and safely do what you like. When you boot Linux,reconnect to the "information superhighway".

Thanks for the video Chris, this was good timing as I'm looking at setting up a dual boot system and quite like this dual drive approach.

During powerup, in GRUB, you can press the escape key after the post beep to bring up the boot options, just in case you need to boot into safe mode.

@kg4wrq

10 ай бұрын

That's good to know. Thanks for the tip.

Best method for me was installing each OS separately and choosing boot up drive from bios (depending on your choice at the moment) Edit windows registry to use UTC time. Then optionally make VirtualBox be able to boot up your physical Linux drive as bonus. That is my current setup.

@leevfx

10 ай бұрын

can virtualbox use an existing windows install as a VM? I'd love to access it from Linux and vice versa, so I could also boot into Windows and VM into Linux...

@davidgomez79

10 ай бұрын

@@leevfx I highly doubt it which is why I haven't tried it. Windows has a history of being very pick about its storage controllers. I have heard that Windows 10 has improved on that so something like moving your NVME to a new motherboard may work but not always and still has issues. I wouldn't recommend it. I know it works with Arch Linux for a fact without on issues. I have even installed the "guest utilities" and have not had a problem with doing this on Linux.

@davidgomez79

10 ай бұрын

@@leevfx The latter does work. I boot up into Windows, start up virtual box and boot into my Linux setup from within windows without a problem to be more clear.

@chrisschembari2486

10 ай бұрын

VirtualBox can boot a physical drive as if it was a virtual disk ISO? Aren't there differences in the hardware reported to the OS? Every time I used to use VirtualBox or other VM solutions, the VM OS would only see a limited set of basic generic Intel chips, even if the bare metal hardware was something else. So Linux would think it was connected to a system with one set of hardware one minute and then another system the next minute. This would minimally make Linux go through some otherwise-unnecessary Discover New Hardware checks after every such cross-system reboot.

@davidgomez79

10 ай бұрын

@@chrisschembari2486 Yes it can. You have run a few commands from the command prompt in windows to crate the file but can easily be found online. When you boot up from within virtual box it reports a different GPU and different hardware than from when you boot up directly from bios of course. Mine detects the GPU as VMware display driver instead of my Radeon RX 6600. When I boot up into Linux from the bios menu Neofetch reports the RX 6600 and the rest of the hardware properly. It all works just fine within Virtual box and booting regularly though no issues at all.

Another great video, thank you. I use dual drive dual boot for an older version of MacOS on my Mac, using an external SSD connected by USB, on which I installed the older MacOS. I just choose to select the external drive as the boot drive during startup and I'm back in time using programmes that no longer run on later MacOS. Just thought people might like to know that Mac's can do this too!

Thanks for this video. I have computer that was only windows 10, but I only used it for Flight Sim. I installed Linux on a separate drive using your clever method. Best idea yet!

I am using dual drive dual boot for a while now and imagine I was always changing boot order in BIOS instead of entering the boot menu... One can always learn something on any known topic really

I'd always wondered what your hesitancy was with dual boot single drive; now I know! I've made enough PCs unbootable in my time (the dreaded "missing NTLDR") to try and avoid it, so dual drive definitely looks a cleaner and safer option.

@gentuxable

10 ай бұрын

Missing NTLDR was luckily easy to fix, just boot the Windows CD and either jump into cmd either with the Recovery Console and do "fixboot" or since Vista even a GUI helps with that. If it was the only thing missing and not because you formatted the wrong partition and installed something on that, that is.

@martinwilkinson2344

10 ай бұрын

@@gentuxable easy to fix but always gives a bit of a flutter!

This is great, I've had a couple of occasions where I've had problems with the dual boot single drive, but your method with two drives and removing the Windows one sounds easiest to do for me.

Magnificent!!! Been looking for this for a long time! I hate that windows up date breaks everything.

For dual drive, method B, a better option is to disable the efi flag on the Windows disk during the installation of Linux. It can be done through gparted, then install Linux as normal and create an efi partition on that drive too. Finally re-enable the efi flag back on the Windows disk and you're all done.

@DoctorOnkelap

10 ай бұрын

or simply always use legacy bios mode disabling all the UEFI crap

It's always better to keep Windows and Linux completely separated because Windows really likes to remove foreign boot loaders. If the Windows drive isn't easily accesible to be disconencted, it's possible to install Linux in a different computer and move the Linux drive.

Thank you for that video! I became interested in Linux, but as a graphic major I have to keep complete compatibility with Adobe. This is perfect for me as I can simply buy another SSD, install it and be able to mess around as much as I want without loosing any functionality or risk of messing up my Windows install.

Sunday greetings, Chris B. Awesome tutorial. I chose a little bit different choice. I have a 1 TB HDD and 256 GB SSD, both had windows. What I did was installed Mint with advance install option on hard drive (didn't want to perform tedious backup task, so created a separate partition of Mint) and Windows remain on SSD. Now I keep all my files on HDD which can be accessed with both Windows (SSD) and Mint. Kind of odd choice if you say so, but this system works flawlessly. Updated Mint from 20 to 21 without issue.

The problem I have with dual boot is invariably one of the OS is used less frequently, so when you finally boot it, it's potentially months behind on updates. That can be a security risk. Probably not a huge deal for a home user hobbyist granted.

@lesliedeana5142

10 ай бұрын

Especially for windows. Not as great a risk for Linux. But between a good VPN and a decent anti virus, my fears are allayed .

@FlyboyHelosim

10 ай бұрын

This isn't just a problem for dual-booting, but virtual machines as well. However, in this case, we're not just talking about two operating systems but sometimes dozens. Ultimately, for most people, housekeeping one OS is bad enough and will just deal with any shortcomings their chosen single OS may have.

@FlyboyHelosim

10 ай бұрын

@@StoryGamingCutscenes I've been running Windows 7 since 2009 with no problems in recent years, except for companies dropping support for it.

@RoastBeefSandwich

10 ай бұрын

@@lesliedeana5142 Linux can be exploited just as Windows can. Please do not believe the old wive's tale that one OS is any more secure than any other.

@RoastBeefSandwich

10 ай бұрын

@@FlyboyHelosim The good thing about a VM being shut down for months is, at least in general a VM is not going to have bare metal etc.

I notice no mention of secure boot option in the bios. I know that we geeks probably already know, but in the future the less geeky may find this video and come across boot failures due to secure boot being a require for Windows 11….or have the Linux guys fixed this issue now?

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

Good point -- I forgot to mention this. But here secure boot is turned on. Linux Mint works with secure boot, but this may not be the case for all distros.

@sotasearcher

18 күн бұрын

@@ExplainingComputers Ubuntu works with secure boot as well! I'm doing this now

@DanielPopescu-il9je

11 күн бұрын

Usb ventoy🤓 Ich habe ubuntu ssd1 ❤ und ssd2 windows installieren 🫡🫡🫡

Hey, Thx u for being there. Have a good Sunday.

Personally , I use the dual drive method B , so I don't have to remove the disk . Thansk for another high quality tutorial!👍

I did a dual boot system like this for many years. However, in my experience if you are in Linux and tempted to move files between Windows folders and Linux folders, ie you allow Linux to read and write to Windows folders (as it can see that drive) eventually Linux may corrupt the Windows NTFS partition. NTFS can be quite fragile under Linux quite possibly because the reverse engineered ntfs-3g Linux driver isn't 100% perfect. Best to stay out of Windows folders while in Linux, imo.

@Robbie-mw5uu

10 ай бұрын

Windows has not used NTFS since Windows XP It's all GPT now

@erroneouscode

10 ай бұрын

@@Robbie-mw5uu GPT is the partition table to address modern larger disk sizes and is not unique to Windows. NTFS is the 'file system' as in 'NT file system' or "New Technology File System" the partition is formatted in under Windows. It's MS proprietary and is still used. A drive is not formatted with 'GPT'. Linux can and does eventually screw up partitions formatted with NTFS.

Why insult Linux with dual booting Windows? 🤔

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

The interesting thing is, nobody will post here "why insult Windows . . . "

@Xavier_Everwhere

8 ай бұрын

bcoz Linus don't deserve respect 😅

Excellent video, as always, and one I have been looking forward to. In the past, when I have experimented with dual boot using GRUB, it has never ended well. Running Linux in VMWare doesn’t seem to work well for me either, so a dual drive system as explained here is obviously the best option.

Thank you for posting this. This is something I will use pretty much right away.

Excellent! This video was EXACTLY what I was looking for

This video thinks right through dual boot . I have learnt something again. Thank You.

Thank you - this will help people who don't know how to do this sort of stuff. The easy disconnect of 2.5" SSDs really does simplify things compared to Nvme.

Thank you so much for bringing this video. It has been immensely helpful in clarifying some doubts that I have about this

I remember days gone by when had an old system you needed to but not use daily for security of the data that I did this. Except I did this by leaving the HDD unplugged on the secure system until I needed to access the data on that OS. That's been a long time (Hard drive days). Enjoying watching.

Very nicely done. Love the clear visuals. I am old enough to remember the OU Programs on TV and I am getting a similar vide from these tutorials,

Wonderful timing I need to set up my new home Linux PC with the Windows option and your usual clear best practice instructions are very well-timed!

@ExplainingComputers

10 ай бұрын

Good luck!

Very good explanation, and I especially liked how you emphasized that it's best to only have one drive at a time connected when installing OS's. I don't understand why Windows doesn't give you the option to ignore the other drive during installation -- it always insists on messing with the other drive's boot sector, and you will almost always regret that later.

This was informative. My setup mixes two methods the first and the last. It is a single 500GB drive dualboot, but with both bootloaders registered in the BIOS menu. I keep the other 1TB SSD for storage or purposes only.

thank you for creating these videos ! your videos have a unique and charmful editing style. you are one of a kind. you are an valuable educator to this world