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I have new Dell XPS 8930 Desktop with the following configuration: Intel i7 8700 Processor(6 Cores) 64 GB DDR4 RAM Intel Optane memory 16GB 2 X 1 TB hard drives. 1060 6 GB NVidia Graphics Came with Windows 10 Professional.

Want to install Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS along side Windows 10.

I extended it with another PCIe NVME Samsung EVO 950 - 500 GB SSD. It's being recognized(attached on the mother board via adapter) so there is no h/w issue.

Tried installing Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS Desktop(disabled secure boot from the BIOS) - everything went fine. After the install - grub appears and the system directly went into Linux only.

tried boot-repair. Got this recommendation:

The current session is in Legacy mode. Please reboot the computer, and use this software in an EFI session. This will enable this feature. For example, use a live-USB of Boot-Repair-Disk-64bit (www.sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd), after making sure your BIOS is set up to boot USB in EFI mode.

Went back to BIOS - switch back the secure boot. But now the system going directly to Windows only(no grub)...to fix this tried this in Windows 10:

To solve this, simply go to Windows and open a terminal, then type the following (Need Administrative Privileges):

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\shimx64.efi

but now all sort of issues are going on...i cannot even boot via the live CD...Windows Boot manager has been corrupted it seems(fortunately i have the recovery media just created before this).

What could be the problem...when i went into the Windows after the linux being installed and saw from the diskpartmgmt utility of windows...my NVME has become disc 0 and Windows data drive is disc 1 and Windows C drive is disc 2

What could be the issue?

Update 1 Having two M2 devices could be an issue. Intel Optane caches the Windows 10 Pro O/S - analogous to Fast boot. One should disable fast boot to install Ubuntu. In my case searching various forums - I got some hints that i should not use both - Intel Optane as well as Samsung PCIe NVME SSD(not very sure - why) for dual boot purpose. One thing is for sure that Windows disk mgmt software changed the order - it moved the PCIe NVME ahead of others once the grub and Linux was installed into it. My Windows got really badly corrupted(Windows Boot manager got corrupted) - Windows recovery drive couldn't bring it back so I need to install it from the installation media. Luckily it's a new system...so nothing to loose much... But doesn't seem to be an easy fix. My Samsung PCIe NVME stil has the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and the grub...how to make the dual boot work properly in this particular configuration...I don't want to eliminate the Intel Optane(as it's useful for Windows...makes Windows somewhat faster)...any idea/clues what's going on here?

Ashu
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  • I bet the 16GB Optane is being used by Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) to cache one of the hard drives. It shouldn't be accelerating the Samsung NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD. Which Samsung model do you have? – WinEunuuchs2Unix Mar 18 '18 at 19:03
  • Samsung 960 EVO Series - 500GB NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E500BW. But Samsung EVO is the one I am putting my Linux...Optane is not even coming in the picture when Linux is up and running...once the grub came and it went to Linux...everything was working fine. – Ashu Mar 18 '18 at 22:27
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    If Windows is also on the NVMe and being accelerated you have to decelerate it first using Intel RST in Windows before running update-grub or grub-install in Linux. At least this was my experience a few years ago with 128GB mSata PCIe SSD and 500 GB HDD.. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Mar 18 '18 at 22:46
  • Windows is NOT on NVME...it's running on traditional hard drive(7200 RPM-Toshiba) and Intel Optane is doing a good job to cache the Windows C:(Toshiba hard drive)...i see my windows at least 30-50% faster...due to Intel Optane... – Ashu Mar 27 '18 at 17:38
  • Did you get the dual boot working? If so, perhaps you can share your experiences to get it working? – TonyB Sep 16 '18 at 02:53
  • Please refer this post(https://askubuntu.com/questions/1031766/installing-ubuntu-desktop-18-04-lts-but-its-not-detecting-my-samsung-pcie-nvme) - it has the details. – Ashu Sep 20 '18 at 00:43

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