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I have Ubuntu installed on my SSD and Windows installed on my hdd. I followed this guide when I was installing Ubuntu (part from "If you cannot disable or unplug the disk with Windows 10", also the same thing is said here), i.e. I installed Ubuntu, turned off some flags on Windows, installed Grub on Ubuntu and turned back on flag on Windows. Now I can choose when booting: windows or ubuntu. Now I want to move my windows to m2 ssd. So my question is, how do I correctly install now Windows so I won't lose my Ubuntu installation? Because it says when installing windows is doing something that will break the boot and it will see only Windows as loading option or something like this. Both Windows and Ubuntu were installed on GPT with UEFI.

andrew.46
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Arzybek
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  • No, installing Windows will not break the boot when correctly installed in UEFI mode. Keep the boot settings as they are, boot override to boot the Windows installation media, point the installer to the blank new drive and it'll do just that and install the Windows bootloader in the already existing ESP on the other drive. – ChanganAuto Nov 21 '22 at 08:49
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    More of a Windows question. But I would remove esp,boot flags from all existing ones. You do not want Windows installing into Ubuntu's ESP and if Windows sees another Windows install it combines them into one ESP using one BCD as its boot loader to choose which Windows to boot.I might make drive gpt & add ESP, just in case to new drive. But let Windows create rest of partitions it wants since it wants many. And you have to have good backups, so then if anything happens you do not want you can easily recovery. – oldfred Nov 21 '22 at 15:23

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So, what worked for me:

  1. Physically disconnect all the drives except new one
  2. Install Windows on it
  3. Connect old hdd with windows, transfer all data, format old hdd
  4. Connect ssd with Ubuntu
  5. Load from Boot-repair on USB
  6. Run boot repair

And after that I again could choose between Windows and Ubuntu when loading on GRUB screen. Even tho it left some uneccessary stuff, Boot-repair is a good tool if you don't want to break anything.

Arzybek
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