I want to move windows (or fresh install) to one of the slower drives in my computer and then install Fedora on my NVMe. I’ll keep the windows drive unmounted/uninitialized on the linux install. I’ll see if I can restrict the Linux drive from windows.
Windows update wrecking dual boots on the same drive seem like a nightmare and I’m just going to skip keeping them on the same drive.
In theory this seems very straightforward to me.
Are there any curveballs coming my way if I move forward?
I think secure boot is something I need to know about. Do RPMfusion Nvidia drivers have to be manually signed if I keep secure boot on? That’s just a few commands if so I believe?
A couple years ago I forgot to unplug my USB backup drive before updating windows. Windows wanted a 32 Gb USB drive to download update files, but ran out of space with no option to cancel the update. After the update the backup drive had been reformatted to create a small Windows partition. Then, on 2 different systems, Windows updates mangled the UEFI boot entries for Fedora for months in a row. Since I’m retired, I can get along without Windows, so removed it. The only way to be sure Windows doesn’t mess with Linux booting and drives is to use removable drives so only one OS is present.
Some users seem to have difficulty with dual boot on one drive.
I have never had an issue in more than 10 years with dual booting laptops that were purchased with windows installed, and I added fedora for dual boot. I have repeated updates of windows from 8 to 10 to 11 as well as fedora updates & reinstalls over the same time period with never an issue on any system. Both desktops and laptops have just worked for me with dual booting and only a single drive.
Windows installed first. Then install fedora. It does not overwrite or mangle the windows boot loader which resides in the EFI/Microsoft directory.
I use the windows disk manager to shrink the windows ntfs file system and leave unallocated space before beginning the fedora installation and simply tell the fedora installer to share the drive.
It works without hassle as long as you do not use the storage editor and tell it to format the efi partition.
I think the most problems occur when users make errors attempting to manually control the installation and defining the partitions.
On separate disks that works well. Can even be done with 2 efi partitions on one disk as long as windows is installed first.
In order to have grub display the windows entry for booting the windows drive must be attached when grub is configured or manually reconfigure grub after attaching the windows drive.
This is so helpful and I feel confident going for it now. There seems to be a lot of horror stories about dual booting, so I wanted to be cautious. I’m glad I came asking for advice. Thank you I really appreciate it!
EDIT: replying to my quote below. Cannot disable NVMe in BIOS. So I will remove the main NVMe reinstall win11_LTSC on the smallNVMe and format the main NVMe and not leave any potential for the various EFI partitions to cause any problems leading me to remove my heat sink half a dozen times while troubleshooting. Just do it the clean certain way the first time even if a bit heavy handed.
I installed a win11_LTSC to the small slower NVMe but my other windows install was still on my main (larger and faster) NVMe drive (the target drive for fedora) so it looks like the win boot manager and all the EFI related things are still on mainNVMe. Installing fedora to the main drive now, sounds like potential problems.
In order to physically remove the main NVMe I have to remove my gpu and take off my heatsink. I would really like to avoid this. But maybe it’s time for some fresh thermal paste anyways. It’s been about 5 years since it was applied. In addition I would have to remove everything twice if it needs to be physically disconnected and reconnected.
Today when I get a chance I’m going to see if I can disable the main NVMe in BIOS and first see if win11_LTSC boots. If successful I’ll just format the entire mainNVMe. If not I’ll reinstall win11_LTSC to the smallNVMe with the main drive disabled or physically removed, so the small NVMe gets all the EFI and windows boot manager partitions.
With the EFI and boot manager on the small NVMe will reactivating the main NVMe with those partitions present cause any problems either before or after formattting it for Fedora?
As long as you install Windows first and then Fedora, you shouldn’t need to remove any drives. I always like to start fresh, so I boot the Fedora live install and run the Disks app and remove all partitions from all drives. THIS IS ASSUMING YOU WANT TO DELETE YOUR ENTIRE PREVIOUS WINDOWS INSTALL. EVERYTHING WILL BE DELETED. Then install Windows on one drive and Fedora on the other drive. You can use your UEFI BIOS to pick which drive to boot and they are totally independent. Or you can do what I prefer and set the Fedora drive as the boot device. Then you can use grub to pick whether to boot Fedora or Windows. I’ve had great luck with this strategy on many systems.