1

I have a 500GB SSD and a 1TB HDD and I'm trying to Dual-Boot Windows and Ubuntu.

My plan is to install Windows and Ubuntu only on the SSD, and then give half of the HDD to each OS for storing larger file.

Is this possible and if so, what are the step-by-step instructions of doing this?

  • 1
    Absolutely you can - and it should work really well. I’ll try to find time to post instructions as an answer later but there are lots of posts on setting up a dual boot system here. The other thing to consider is whether you might want to give both os’s access to the whole hd drive rather than exclusive access to half. The advantage of the former is that you can more easily share files between the systems - there may be things that are useful for you to access from either os. – Will Sep 18 '21 at 15:52
  • Newer hardware is UEFI. Windows requires gpt partitioning for UEFI boot, so best to have both drives as gpt and both installs as UEFI. Windows in UEFI mode wants multiple partitions so often best to let it install first. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI I do like to have an ESP & Linux install on HDD also. That way I can test/experiment with something and not worry about damaging or changing main working install. Once installed, establish backup procedures immediately. – oldfred Sep 18 '21 at 18:10
  • Is it possible to without formating ssd and hdd? – Rushabh Patel Sep 21 '21 at 05:36

1 Answers1

2

It's totally possible to dual-boot Windows and Ubuntu. Many people do it.

This assumes you want the Windows to have 250 GB on the SSD, and 500 GB on the HDD, and the same for Linux (although I do explain having one big shared partition on the HDD at the end, though).

If there are existing partitions on either drive that have data, make sure you back it up. We will be deleting the existing data, so if you don't, the data will be gone.

  1. Install Windows. In the Windows Installer, when you get to Where do you want to install Windows?, first, delete any existing partitions (on the SSD), and then tell the Windows installer to install on the entire drive (yes, we will shrink it later). Finish Windows setup as normal.
  2. Install Ubuntu. In the Ubuntu installer, there will already be a few partitions for Windows, so we need to make Windows smaller to create space for Ubuntu. Follow these directions to manually make space for Linux. Note that this sometimes can cause you to lose data on the Windows partition, so don't put anything there that is important before you have finished installing both Windows and Ubuntu. After you've done those steps, continue with the Ubuntu installer.
  3. Make sure you can boot into both OS's.
  4. Now we have two options for the HDD... you can either create one big partition that both Ubuntu and Linux can write to, or two separate ones. I'll explain for two separate ones
  5. Boot into Windows. Open Partition Manager. On the HDD (double-check you've selected the right drive), delete any existing partitions (if any), and then create one partition that is 500 GB (and format it as NTFS). You can store large files in this for Windows.
  6. Boot into Ubuntu. Open the Linux partition manager (probably gparted, if I remember correctly). There will be 500 GB of unallocated space on the HDD. In the unallocated space, create a 500 GB partition, and format it as ext4. This is where you will be able to store large files in Linux.

Bonus: Creating one big partition on the HDD instead of two smaller ones:

This assumes that you haven't yet done anything with the HDD, if you have, delete any partitions on it. This will delete any data on the HDD, though.

  1. (In Windows), create one 1TB partition on the HDD. Format it as NTFS. Now Windows can access it.
  2. I'm not sure if Ubuntu comes with NTFS read/write support (if someone knows, please edit this). If it does, you should just be able to mount the partition normally. You might run into issues, such it being read-only. Also, if you need NTFS write support, you might need to install ntfs-3g with the command sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g Assuming all goes well, though, it should just work.
cocomac
  • 3,394
  • In step 1, why not pre-partition the SSD and install Windows on one partition (half of the disk) right away? In steps 5 and 6, you can create both partitions for Windows (NTFS) and Linux (ext4) from Ubuntu, you don't have to make Windows partition from Windows. As for step 2 in alternative scenario, yes, Ubuntu has NTFS read/write support for quite a long time (it has to, otherwise external disks would not work - they are almost all NTFS formatted nowadays). Works out of the box, no need to install ntfs-3g separately. – raj Sep 18 '21 at 19:57
  • I'd suggest first creating all needed partitions (with GParted from live session on Ubuntu installation media), and then install Ubuntu. Then you will be able to select a mount point for the data partition during installation and have Ubuntu automatically mount it on boot. If you create the data partition after installation, you will need to do this manually (ie. create a directory that will serve as a mount point and edit /etc/fstab appropriately). – raj Sep 18 '21 at 20:05
  • @raj I wasn’t sure about if what you described was possible when I wrote the answer, so I just explained what I knew would work, but if you can explain what you described, feel free to edit my answer to make it better – cocomac Sep 18 '21 at 21:22