SSD and boot

[zosnoob25]

Hi All-
I have a Dell 5570 I installed Zorin OS on last week; so far so good on the learning curve. I installed Zorin expecting it to wipe out the previous windows content, and NOT dual boot; - but when I start up it shows both Zorin and the windows boot manager options- which I expect is Zorin left the 128GB M.2 SATA SSD alone and Zorin went to the 1TB SSD "primary hdd." I want this machine to have no memory of anything M$ and also can't reconcile just leaving 128GB to the dustbin (ie unchecking the smaller drive in the bios. ) Wouldn't it be more prudent to install Zorin OS on the smaller 128GB ssd and use the 1TB as storage? If so, now that I have Zorin running on the 1TB how would I do that? i.e., install Z on the 128, make that the boot disk with most of Zorin and designate the 1TB to be "auxiliary" space. I like the idea of placing my music .wav library on the larger disk along with backups, etc.

Thank you
dlw

 

[Brickwizard]

You may have a hidden Windows recovery partition ,use partition magic or similar to completely clean the drives and start again [don't forget to save anything important to an external drive]

Now NVM3 is fastest then in order, M2 SATA, SATA 3 SSD, SATA 3 HDD I have 2 machines one has a NVMe 128 gb and a 500gb HDD, the other a 250 NVMe and a 250 SATA SSD , I have them both set up the same way, the NVMe in both cases runs the operating system and the second drive s used solely for storage, so translating to your situation , I would put the OS on the smaller M2 drive and keep the big one for mass storage,

 

[zosnoob25]

You may have a hidden Windows recovery partition ,use partition magic or similar to completely clean the drives and start again [don't forget to save anything important to an external drive]

Now NVM3 is fastest then in order, M2 SATA, SATA 3 SSD, SATA 3 HDD I have 2 machines one has a NVMe 128 gb and a 500gb HDD, the other a 250 NVMe and a 250 SATA SSD , I have them both set up the same way, the NVMe in both cases runs the operating system and the second drive s used solely for storage, so translating to your situation , I would put the OS on the smaller M2 drive and keep the big one for mass storage,

Thanks bw... Does this make sense: Remove the 1TB ssd from the machine, leaving just the 128GB, then boot to the same usb stick I installed Zorin from to the 1TB, which would in theory wipe the 128 M2 sata ssd and install Zorin OS cleanly on that one. I don't know how Linux treats "boot sectors" but if I had the BIOS set to boot from the 128 now, wouldn't it ignore the boot sector on the 1TB but now since both are formatted for Linux, both should be discoverable?

 

[Brickwizard]

You could, but you will then have to tell the OS to mount the second drive at boot, if there is nothing to keep on it then wipe it, if you keep it, and it has a bootable distribution the new installation will find it and share boot
OH and disable secure boot and windows quick start in the EUFI before you start to install anything, you can enable secure boot after installation [provided your chosen distribution supports it, not all do]

 

[zosnoob25]

OK then, if I get this straight, I just change the boot order, and expect the OS's to get confused and smack me around some, try to share boot responsibilities, and then I'd add in the secure boot later.
But until I'm more savvy at the terminal and diskpart it looks like I'll just uncheck the 128 drive in the bios/uefi so it "disappears" from the startup menu on boot (outta sight outta mind) but the contents are still there, including any protected win partitions, and I pretend all I gots under the hood is the 1TB. I can do this other stuff later on. Thanks again!

 

[Brickwizard]

OK then, if I get this straight, I just change the boot order, and expect the OS's to get confused and smack me around some, try to share boot responsibilities, and then I'd add in the secure boot later.

No, that's not what I said,
If there is nothing on the M2 SSD that needs to be saved, install your chosen distribution to it, many distributions will ask if you want grub on sda1 say yes then when it installs it will recognise both drives, and the M2 drive should automatically become first boot

if you are new to Linux read the first 3 links n my signature below

 

[MikeWalsh]

If Brian is talking about his Latitude, I too have one very similar......just slightly newer (an E6430). Mine has divested itself of the optical drive module, and I've replaced it with the 'storage' module (i.e., a second storage drive).

My primary is a Crucial SATA3 SSD, the 'secondary' is the 640 GB WD SATA3 HDD it came with when I bought it off eBay. In my case, all I'd do would be to press the quick-release latch, pull the storage module out and put it to one side while I performed the install on the 'primary' (the SSD).

That way, the boot sector would only be written on the primary drive......which is where you would want it.


Mike.

 

[zosnoob25]

Hi All-
I have a Dell 5570 I installed Zorin OS on last week; so far so good on the learning curve. I installed Zorin expecting it to wipe out the previous windows content, and NOT dual boot; - but when I start up it shows both Zorin and the windows boot manager options- which I expect is Zorin left the 128GB M.2 SATA SSD alone and Zorin went to the 1TB SSD "primary hdd." I want this machine to have no memory of anything M$ and also can't reconcile just leaving 128GB to the dustbin (ie unchecking the smaller drive in the bios. ) Wouldn't it be more prudent to install Zorin OS on the smaller 128GB ssd and use the 1TB as storage? If so, now that I have Zorin running on the 1TB how would I do that? i.e., install Z on the 128, make that the boot disk with most of Zorin and designate the 1TB to be "auxiliary" space. I like the idea of placing my music .wav library on the larger disk along with backups, etc.

Thank you
dlw

Update and in need of more helps.... Got Zorin OS running swimmingly with just the 1TB SSD despite the 2min boot up time. I got a deal on a new M.2 NVMe 256GB and swapped that in and set the old SATA M.2 aside. Installed Zos Pro (wipe style) onto that without issue, and then re-partitioned the 1TB SSD into 3 ext4's : a 500GB for the future new "home" directory I named "/home" ('cause I'll do that) and a couple partitions for music (etc) and backup files.
I started the process of moving the Home directory from the NVMe with the OS and boot /efi on it over to the new home partition on the larger SSD, and Youtube gurus and distros being what they are, I got partway through it and it coughed up some can't do that lingo at me. Here's where i stand (and someone please sudo me to completion?)
lsblk gives me the NVMe with 2 parts- boot/efi and zorin. The 1TB SSD (sda) shows up with /dev/sda 2 and 3 as expected with no mounting points (yet,) while the "/home" directory /dev/sda1 shows "/media/(my username)/_home" as mount points. In "Files" on Zorin OS (NVMe) my "Home" directory is empty now, and in the "other locations" sda1 has one directory ("my username") in it which has the folders previously included under "Home." I think my Youtube education failed at the point I was to rsync and delete the old home folder, but there may be some other hoops to jump through ("etc") etc. There's nothing in any of the files yet to lose, but i want to get the pathways and protocol buttoned up first. Any help greatly appreciated!

 

[Brickwizard]

NVMe with 2 parts- boot/efi and zorin.

Good when you switch it on does it now boot into Zorn [I would expect it to take under 40 seconds on that machine with a class 3 NVMe] [and i don't bother to partition my storage drives]

 

[zosnoob25]

Good when you switch it on does it now boot into Zorn [I would expect it to take under 40 seconds on that machine with a class 3 NVMe] [and i don't bother to partition my storage drives]

Yes; the boot sector and Zorin Pro are on the new M.2 NVMe 256GB (and booted there by default) and when I formatted the 1TB SSD (through DISKS gui in that M.2 os) I cleared the thing of its previous Zorin/boot partition and contents, so 3 clean ext4 partitions, and so no os or boot record on that SSD now, beyond what Z added with the partitioning for journaling and reserve, and the new home directory migration. Preliminarily, boot up is wicked fast now, as hoped.
I think there are modifications I need to do to the etc and (what I would call registry, but might be "root record pathway changes stuff) as in it was my understanding that when I placed my Home directory onto the second SSD the "root" would not look for it in the NVMe SSD with its companions (bin, tmp, mnt, etc, ) but direct its activity to the new location on /dev/sda1/ (?). I think the root checks mnt first for the home folder location but not sure yet of those kernel command pathways. So I'm halfway there. There was a rsync command thing somewhere, and i'm trying to figure out if I jump back in what not to do. Any thoughts?