Dual Boot Dual Discs

Ask Fedora
, , ,
1

Hello. I am new to Fedora and have been using Arch for almost the entirety of life. I got a new laptop with Windows 11 pre-installed and now want to install Fedora on a separate SSD (120 GB). I have 512 GB disc/SSD inside my laptop for Windows. I just want to make sure that nothing breaks on Windows side. I created a bootable USB (64 GB) using Ventoy and loaded the Live environment, it’s as smooth as I want it to run. But I got scared in the storage/partition part since English is not my primary language.

Here is what is see.

  1. There is select destination part in which select the second SSD, not the one inside my laptop with Windows.
  2. After selecting it, I see, use entire disk option and manual partition option.
  3. My technical language understanding fails me in, use entire disk option’s summary. And for my entire life I used Arch on a BIOS MBR/GPT thing, so I cannot figure out /boot /uefi stuff in the custom/manual partitioning option.
  4. As a side note, I have installed Linux Mint on my second external SSD. I did this process without removing my laptop’s SSD using this method given by Explaining Computers channel on Youtube.

I am going through all this because I have a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 which didn’t work due to driver issues in the Linux Mint and I want to try out Fedora hoping it works.

How do I not cause issues in the Windows side and still install Fedora 43 for my environment without removing my primary laptop SSD?

EDIT: I have disabled BitLocker and current boot order is primary disk/SSD first and external hard drive second. So, normally Windows just boots, but during power up of laptop if I press F12 key, I get to boot drive selection option, from where I select 120 GB drive with Linux and Grub

4

Use the entire disk for the second drive.

Don’t use the custom partitioning. The installer will create the proper partitioning when you allow it to use the entire disk and do so automatically.

If installing fedora to that same drive just allow it to use the entire disk as noted above. Fedora should find and configure booting for windows on the internal drive as well.

For the nvidia gpu it may be necessary to select the troubleshooting option from the initial boot menu and boot to basic graphics mode while installing. Once the install is complete then during first boot enable the 3rd party repos. After that boot and setup is complete then follow the instructions here to install the nvidia drivers from rpmfusion. Wait 5 minutes after the driver install completes before booting.

EDIT: To ensure you only install to t he second drive make sure only that drive is checked for the installer.

I usually allow the system to boot to grub and from there select windows when i want it to boot. You can, of course, leave the boot order so that windows boots by default.