In all honesty I joined this forum just to ask this question. So let me explain in brief (if I’ll be able to).
First of let me say I have never, repeat never used linux OS. Even as a Windows consumer I’m your typical user. In other words I just know the mere basics of it (I think ). Crux of the matter is the following. In a few weeks I’ll finally be after 9 years, switching from a laptop (yes for 9 years I have been using the same laptop an HP intel core2 duo ) to a desktop PC.
So that’s the state of things at the moment. What I would like to do on my new PC is to have a dual boot system, as stated in the title. Win10 on a Samsung 960 Pro SSD, and a Linux OS on the Toshiba 240GB OCZ SSD (regular SATA). As I read some other topics on this forum regarding the dual boot configuration having them on different drives is good, but there is a chance of some crosstalk between the two OS’s, which isn’t good. So question #1 is there a way of setting the OS systems so that they don’t see each other when for example in Win10, that it doesn’t see the SSD where linux is instaled and vice versa. When in Linux OS that it doesnt see Win10 respectively.
I found this topic on the forum Dual booting two Different OS’s on Two different Hard Drives
So this outlines one of the things I need to be aware of when installing Win10 and LinuxOS and how the repsective drives need to be set in the UEFI. But this doesn’t solve the problem of “hiding” the OS’s drives from one another.
Another thing I would also like to do if possible, to choose to which OS I boot to at the start up. Giving me a choise. Just for the ease of use, because going each time into UEFI and selecting the drive from which to boot is in my view really tedious, as I found out in this topic Getting Mint to Dual-Boot with win8.1
Please note that as mentioned I am totaly really totaly not well versed in any sort of coding or programing. My main reason for considering all of this is to learn and hopefully down the line eventually rely less on the program doing things for me (inside of a cacoon), instead getting to know the underbelly and “bending” the program to my needs. Wheter or not it hapens is very much up in the air, but i would like to take at the very least a step towards it.
Anyway if there are things here that are written in an unclear manner I apologise and will do more to clarify in subsequent post/s.
Thank you and all advice is appreciated.
P.S.
If there allready exists a topic that deals with this exact problem/question) post a link so I can go ahead and read it. Been searching for examples such as this case, haven’t found it yet. Most deal with dual booting from the same drive. Also I know it is a bad idea for novices such as my self to atempt a dual boot (especialy in this way), but since I won’t be keeping the old laptop this is the only way for me to get into Linux at the presnt.
“duel” (as Wendell puts it) booting is much simpler and more straightforward than traditional dual-booting (that is, both OS’s on one disk). I have not recommended dual-boot-on-single-disk for ages. it’s just stupid.
install one disk (and NOT the other), install the first OS.
then remove that disk, install the other disk, and install the other OS.
after that’s done, with both disks installed, decide which OS you want to be the “default” OS. set the disk for that OS as the first boot option in your UEFI.
when you want to boot to the other OS, you don’t have to go back into the UEFI just to select a boot drive. most (all, afaik) motherboards will give you a one-time boot menu. it’s usually [F11] (check your manual).
Not sure why you’d want to do that. I like to unplug the linux hard drive when installing windows so it can’t screw up the bootloader, but other than that having the operating systems see one another is actually quite beneficial. I can, for example, mount the Windows hard drive from Linux and transfer files between the two.
GRUB will do that for you. Just install Linux and you’ll be presented with a bootloader.
A brief question deserves a brief answer, so here goes …
Install Windows first on the 960PRO, but make sure that’s the only connected drive. Windows has this nasty habit of putting its bootloader’s partition on another drive, so make sure there’s no other drive connected during the installation of Windows.
If you then connect the SATA SSD and install Linux on that, Linux should see the Windows install and suggest dual booting.
Now there’s a couple of things about this that are worth noting :
1 ) For some reason Linux doesn’t always see NVMe drives. I had that problem when I first tried dual booting my current PC (around 2 years ago). No idea if it’s any better now, I choose my boot OS via the boot menu (usually F2, F8 or F11 depending on your motherboard’s manufacturer).
2 ) If the Linux installer does see the Windows install, be very careful how you proceed. Often times the installer will try to install Linux and/or the GRUB bootloader on the Windows drive. I’d suggest manually configuring the partitions so that you can make sure that you have Linux as well as your GRUB bootloader on the SATA SSD.
The reason why I suggest putting the bootloader on the SATA drive is simple : If you decide that Linux isn’t for you, you can simply format that SSD and your Windows bootloader on the 960PRO will still be intact. If you had put the GRUB bootloader on the 960PRO, you can run into problems if you remove Linux from your PC again or if either SSD goes bad.
While running in Windows, your Windows install will not be able to access the Linux SSD because Windows doesn’t recognize the EXT4 filesystem that Linux uses by default.
In Linux on the other hand you normally will be able to see, read and write on the Windows drive. There should be ways to stop the drive from showing up entirely if you so desire. I just haven’t looked into them because it’s a non-issue for me.
Use your motherboards boot options to change between them at boot. You should have a function key for just picking the boot drive, and dont have to go into BIOS to change it manually each time.
If I were in your position though I would honestly just virtualize linux to play around with. VirtualBox is my go to for that.
Man, when I read threads like this I can’t entirely tell if I’m just a dinosaur. To be honest I haven’t set up a dual-boot Linux/Windows system in a long time, but it’s something I used to do quite frequently. And I didn’t think it was hard at all, even with only one disk. Just partition the disk, install Windows first (always install Windows first because it will fuck things up if you do it second…), then install Linux. That’s about it…
But like I said, it’s been a while. We didn’t have UEFI and GPT back then, just BIOS and MBR. Has it really gotten that much more complicated?
The problem is mainly windows 10 will sometimes mess up your MBR with an update, which is simple enough to fix but the guy is new to this. Then what if he decides down the road Linux isn’t the path for him and wants grub gone? It’s just easier to not have to deal with either situation for someone who hasn’t messed with it. Maybe down the road they will get more comfortable with the possibility of troubleshooting the boot loader and want grub to handle booting. IMO this is the best way for most.
1: Install windows on nvme, when it’s done shut it down from the cmd (it just hibernates by default)
2: Install linux (Mint is good to starter option) on the ssd & make the ssd the first boot option from the bios/uefi.
Replug all the drives if you unplugged any (shouldn’t even be necessary, but better to be safe I guess).
Boot to linux and update grub (the bootloader), it will add windows to the list. There’s no need to edit bios settings and change any hard drives on boot.
If you installed Mint you can update the grub settings from the terminal
Easy-peasy, some people are making it sound more complicated than it in reality is.
Thanks a lot for all the feed back. I guess as mentioned in one of the posts, I’m just kinda scared of bricking the ssd and making a big deal over nothing.
Will defenitly folow the instructions and yeah I was intending to go with Mint, as many have said here and on youtube, that Mint is most user friendly for absolute begginers like me.
Anyways back to topic. Again thanks for the feedback, really helpfull. Will let you all know in few weeks (waiting for the case and HDD’s to arrive) how I do.
). Crux of the matter is the following. In a few weeks I’ll finally be after 9 years, switching from a laptop (yes for 9 years I have been using the same laptop an HP intel core2 duo 
) to a desktop PC.
