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Dual Boot Seperate Hard Drives Question

I currently have my SSD running windows , than a bunch of files on my HDD to not take up space on my SSD. If i'd like to dual boot Linux Mint ,how would i go about dual booting it through my HDD.

Would it delete anything currrently on my HDD?

Would it still pop up on restart which boot i'd like to start Windows 10 or Linux?

How do i set it up?
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(May 25, 2016 08:27 AM)Charles Carmichael Wrote:  I currently have my SSD running windows , than a bunch of files on my HDD to not take up space on my SSD. If i'd like to dual boot Linux Mint ,how would i go about dual booting it through my HDD.

Would it delete anything currrently on my HDD?

Would it still pop up on restart which boot i'd like to start Windows 10 or Linux?

How do i set it up?

It would require a format of the drive to install the OS.
In my opinion the easy way to select which OS to boot from using 2 drives would be the Boot menu which is accessible when you would normally enter BIOS/UEFI by pressing F12 (sometimes F11) rather than DEL.
(May 25, 2016 08:55 AM)Gt403cyl Wrote:  It would require a format of the drive to install the OS.
In my opinion the easy way to select which OS to boot from using 2 drives would be the Boot menu which is accessible when you would normally enter BIOS/UEFI by pressing F12 (sometimes F11) rather than DEL.

Now if I installed it on my SSD would i just partition it and that wouldn't affect any of my current files?
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(May 25, 2016 08:59 AM)Charles Carmichael Wrote:  Now if I installed it on my SSD would i just partition it and that wouldn't affect any of my current files?

sooo here's what you want to do;
-determine which drive you would like the second OS on
-repartition the drive as needed, shrink existing partition
-create new partition, install os on new partition
-use grub or something similar so you can choose which partition to use on boot

that's pretty much it. You don't need to use grub, you just need something that will tell the computer what to boot to.
(May 25, 2016 08:59 AM)Charles Carmichael Wrote:  Now if I installed it on my SSD would i just partition it and that wouldn't affect any of my current files?

I don't believe you can partition a drive after the OS is on it, that is something you do before installing the OS.
(May 25, 2016 09:03 AM)Gt403cyl Wrote:  I don't believe you can partition a drive after the OS is on it, that is something you do before installing the OS.

Pardon me i ment to say Shrink the current partition.
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(May 25, 2016 09:03 AM)Gt403cyl Wrote:  I don't believe you can partition a drive after the OS is on it, that is something you do before installing the OS.

You can indeed add new partitions to a drive, windows disk management has a feature to shrink partition up to 50%, with the fresh unallocated space you can create new partitions.
(May 25, 2016 09:15 AM)๖ۣۜOpulence Wrote:  You can indeed add new partitions to a drive, windows disk management has a feature to shrink partition up to 50%, with the fresh unallocated space you can create new partitions.

So would this allow me to use my HDD without reformatting it and losing every file i have saved to it for Windows or?
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(May 25, 2016 09:23 AM)Charles Carmichael Wrote:  So would this allow me to use my HDD without reformatting it and losing every file i have saved to it for Windows or?

Yes, as always though, make sure you have up to date backups just in case.
This article should help guide you.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/window...0-3633084/


One last thing, I know in the article it says you will be able to choose OS on startup, that is not true. You need something to boot into before windows which would allow you to select an OS. For this I recommend grub.

This article explains more about it
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiOSBoot
(May 25, 2016 09:35 AM)๖ۣۜOpulence Wrote:  Yes, as always though, make sure you have up to date backups just in case.
This article should help guide you.

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/window...0-3633084/

Alright thanks i'll look into reading this more etc when I decide if i'm going to stick with Linux Mint or go with another distro.
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