Dual booting from separate disks

[enrique_marrodz]

Hello everyone

I have a computer with two physical disks, Windows 10 in one and Mint in the second. When I installed Mint it didn't ask about installing along with Windows and simply showed the option to select which disk to use so, even if it's working fine I need to manually go to the Bios and selected which disk to boot from as no Grub was configured.

Now, both OSs are working fine in their own disk but how can I install a boot manager to easily select which one to boot (along with recovery options for each)?

I've been looking at several articles but all consider having Windows and Mint in the same disk.

Thanks in advance!

[deepakdeshp]

Boot form Mint. Run following command

Code: Select all

 sudo update-grub

. Reboot and test if you get grub.

[Mattyboy]

What deepakdeshp said... but don't forget to set your Linux drive as first boot priority in Bio's/UEFI.

[enrique_marrodz]

Thanks to both for your quick responses

I already did that but Grub still doesn't "see" the other HDD containing Windows. I even tried to add a manual entry to the Grub file:

menuentry "Windows 10" --class windows --class os {
insmod ntfs
search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid CCB7-7A87 <-- this is the EFI partition in the other HDD
ntldr /bootmgr
}

But it didn't work. The option appears (obviously), but it says no "CCB7-7A87" device found

Also tried this one:

menuentry 'Windows 10' {
search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root CCB7-7A87
chainloader (${root})/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

And got the same error.

BIOS is already configured to boot first the Linux disk.

Any suggestion?

Regards

Enrique M

[Mattyboy]

Take a look at this tutorial, viewtopic.php?f=42&t=163126 the part where it discusses EFI "VERY IMPORTANT STEP!!! Near bottom of window, "Device for bootloader installation" should be the EFI System Partition". Set up separate /root /swap /home partitions ( maybe leave 20-30GB for a timeshift partition ) 1 gigabyte(GB) = 1024 megabytes https://www.quora.com/Is-1-GB-equal-to- ... or-1000-MB

Personally I don't do this as I like to keep anything Windows well away from my Linux drives. I just boot either OS from the Bio's/UEFI.

[enrique_marrodz]

Thanks again.

As I mentioned I already have both OSs installed in their own HDD. Linux HDD is first to boot as I configured so i the BIOS. Grub is working fine for Mint and I added some lines to try to boot Windows, specifically pointing to the EFI partition.

The tutorial didn't really showed anything I haven't done nor anything I can do without reinstalling everything. Isn't really any other way? I honestly though it was just a matter of correctly pointing to Windows Bootloader in GRUB

[Pierre]

on some PCs you can hit F12 to select the HDD that you wish to Boot Up.

this may not be the most convenient method, but try it & see if it works on your machine.

[Mattyboy]

... without reinstalling everything. Isn't really any other way? I honestly though it was just a matter of correctly pointing to Windows Bootloader in GRUB

Possibility you can do this without reinstalling but I can't help you there ( efibootmgr ?? ), imagine if you can it would be complicated. Re-installing would be the most straightforward method.

I realize its not what you're asking but do think hard before mixing things up with Windows 10, that operating system is an absolute bee for wreaking havoc in Linux boot when it forces its insidious updates I really would stick with selecting which one from the bio's/UEFI boot menu unless there's a really good reason not to. The two drives method of dual booting is gold, why mess with it?

[enrique_marrodz]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

My original setup had both OSs in the same drive and it was fine until I messed up experimenting (lol)

I though of having separate disks to reduce the risk and, if the BIOS wasn't so cumbersome I would be glad to use it too.

I'm the mean time I'll do so anyway.

Thanks again and I hope to see you all in the next topic

[AndyMH]

On one of my T430's I had win10 on one SSD installed in UEFI, on another SSD I had mint installed in legacy. BIOS was set to both (UEFI first). grub would not find win10 and I had to F12 to boot it. Have since re-installed win10 in legacy mode and grub found it. Are both OS's installed the same way?