case310350
New Member
I loaded windows on the m2 ssd. like to load linux on the second external drive. I do not want to pull the m2 drive . looking for a way to bypass the m2 when needed
DUal boot m2 slot and external drive win/linux
- Thread starter case310350
- Start date
Not sure what you mean by second external drive. I am assuming that you are indicating you have a second ssd in an m2 slot. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to set up a dual boot machine. Maybe someone else here has a favorite one to put forward for you. I will go out and find one as I have time. One other thing you may consider using a vm to run linux if you don't feel comfortable setting up the dual boot. This is considerably easier and will allow you to try out various distributions
If you really are considering putting linux on an external drive I would not set up dual boot. You might be able to just change your boot order to choose the external drive. Looking at the pulling the m2 statement you made earlier I think I now understand why you are saying that. To make this work by changing the boot order work neither OS can share a grub. Pulling the drive would help facilitate that. You may be able to boot with a live CD and take your drive with Windows offline temporarily and then installing linux on the external drive. Go back and put the ssd back online and then you can choose which OS to use by boot order. Hope that makes sense. Not something I have done before but think the methodology would work.
You shouldn't have to pull the m2.
If you already have Linux on your external drive booting it is fairly painless.
Go into the BIOS on your pc and go to the boot section.
Once in the boot section make the second external drive the first choice in the boot list.
Save the changes and reboot.
Rebooting should start boot process of whatever Linux you have on that drive and go to the desktop environment.
May not even have to go that far, although it will work.
What Linux distro and version are you considering, @case310350 ?
Chances are you can choose within the installation process to install it on the second drive, and then during the installlation it will run os-prober, detecting what is on the other drive, and generate a Grub Menu.
When you reboot, the Grub Menu will have Linux on top of it, and a reference further down on Windows Boot Manager, which is your entry to Windows.
HTH
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
What Linux distro and version are you considering, @case310350 ?
Chances are you can choose within the installation process to install it on the second drive, and then during the installlation it will run os-prober, detecting what is on the other drive, and generate a Grub Menu.
When you reboot, the Grub Menu will have Linux on top of it, and a reference further down on Windows Boot Manager, which is your entry to Windows.
HTH
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
Once you have Linux installed on your second drive and you reboot don't panic if you don't see Windows in your Grub Menu.
IF that happens run this in your terminal in Linux.
If you installed Arch Linux, Slackware or anything that's not Debian based run:
IF that happens run this in your terminal in Linux.
Code:
sudo update-grubIf you installed Arch Linux, Slackware or anything that's not Debian based run:
Code:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
OP
case310350
New Member
I did not explain well. I want to load windows on m2 which i did. then load linux on anther drive, not m2 slot. the boot file are separate and there is no grub for linux on the windows drive. I here the grub will get corrupted and then you got problems. So want to keep boot file separate. But pulling the m2 drive so it is not in the system would be difficult. but if i did then load linux on the other drive insures that each will have their own boot file.
But what has happen is when I go to the bios for boot sequence. the linux boot is on the windows drive. so now I have a mess because I have to delete the grub do mbr etc.
So is there a way to load linux on a separate drive where it retains the boot file on its drive with out affecting the m2 windows drive?.
But what has happen is when I go to the bios for boot sequence. the linux boot is on the windows drive. so now I have a mess because I have to delete the grub do mbr etc.
So is there a way to load linux on a separate drive where it retains the boot file on its drive with out affecting the m2 windows drive?.
OP
case310350
New Member
Loading linux mint 21.2
The only problem I have with that is one is an external drive. In my mind I figured It might get removed. I'm not sure if linux wasn't installed second that grub would be installed on the second drive. The thought of merely taking the windows drive offline while installing linux on the external drive would allow for that drive to be removed at anytime without hosing things up. Boot order would take care of the situation. I would also say if its a windows OS using some flavor of bitlocker that you decrypt first temporarily if you are dual booting. I just went through a dual boot exercise a few months ago and ran into all kinds of interesting issues. I would suggest anyone doing this walk through a few different tutorials just so they know some of the things they may run into.
