How do I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu on two separate hard drives?

Question

How can I dual boot Windows on SSD and Ubuntu on HDD? [Windows on SSD is already installed]

I am facing problem while installing on HDD, at the end display suddenly automatically off, black screen.

Dual drive dual boot configurations are always such a pain. Many, many issues appear here. Would you consider putting your /home on the HDD while installing root to the SSD? If you need space on the SSD to do so, you can move System Recovery and TEMP and TMP files of Windows to the HDD...digging up my explanation of how to do that now... see https://superuser.com/a/1547422/264083 — K7AAY, May 01 '20 at 17:24
Does this answer your question? Dual Boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.04 on two drives — dlin, May 01 '20 at 21:44
Does this answer your question? Dual Booting win 10 and Ubuntu 18.04 on two separate physical ssds — user68186, May 01 '20 at 22:57
Unplug your Windows drive when installing Ubuntu to the HDD. Install Ubuntu in the same mode as Windows, BIOS or UEFI. After Ubuntu install plug in Windows disk and Boot Ubuntu. Run sudo update-grub in terminal. to put Windows on the boot menu. — C.S.Cameron, May 02 '20 at 04:44
What video card/chip? You may need nomodeset boot parameter in grub's linux line. https://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it — oldfred, May 02 '20 at 16:00

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 01 '20 at 18:50

If you have Windows already installed on SSD, you shouldn't do anything to SSD and only focus how to install Ubuntu on HDD independently, so that you can choose the system to boot in the BIOS. Then you could simply add Windows entry to Grub boot menu and set the primary drive to boot in BIOS to HDD.

In order to add Windows entry to Grub menu, it could be helpful to look at this post Add Windows 10 to GRUB OS list or do it easier (by GUI) with Grub Customizer. In both approaches you need to know the name of Windows main partition, which you can obtain using lsblk command.

The only question that remains is: why you cannot install Ubuntu individually? Can you give us more details about the installation process? Have you been using the Secure Boot???, e.g. in the BIOS, when you was choosing the media with Ubuntu (DVD or pendrive) to boot for installation, did you spot that the same media name come with two copies, one of them preceded with UEFI:?

At last, if you ever get an idea to install both systems on the same drive, which in my opinion is much more risky, here is a guideline: How to Dual Boot Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Along with Windows 10

How do I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu on two separate hard drives?

1 Answers1