Migrate to LM without losing partition in NTFS

[Disil07]

So 1 year ago I have asked about migrating to Linux Mint. It did not work as expected, because the laptop dies . Anyway I got myself a new laptop, it has W10 installed by default. Because of the possibility of 'not able to receive W11' I would like to try to migrate to Linux again. I have already make a bootable USB sticks. The only thing that hold me from migrating is... partition.

By default my W10 installation comes with 2 partition.

• C: is for OS data

• D: is for my personal stuff.

It is formatted in NTFS. I would like to install LM to the C: drive, without 'touching' anything related to D drive. Can I do that? I don't have any spare PC, so data safety is a must.

Also I've heard that Linux does not work quite well with NTFS, its native format is ext4. Will that affect my installation in the future?

[djph]

You "can", but Linux has no concept of drive letters, so you have to watch where you're telling the installer to delete.

Your safest approach is to backup any important data onto a USB stick (or USB HDD) that is then DISCONNECTED from the machine while installing linux. This way, in the event that you do make an error, your data is still safely stored away.

Note that while LinuxMint can read/write to NTFS partitions (such as your "Data" partition), you cannot install LinuxMint onto an NTFS partition. So you will need to either:

• Resize an existing partition
• Delete an existing partition
• Opt to forgo using the existing drive altogether, and swap it out

In either event, an installed copy of LinuxMint will take about 15 GiB of space. In order to have some usable amount of space for yourself, you will most likely want a minimum of 40-50 GiB allocated to the LM install.

[ThaCrip]

Yeah, it should work. but you will just have to be careful during the installation process and might have to opt for custom install. it's one of those things I could probably figure out if the laptop was in front of me. but giving you a step-by-step off the top of my head would be difficult.

but depending on how much data you have, I would strongly suggest backing it up to say a USB stick temporarily before proceeding as this way even if the data got deleted on your hard drive you will still have the data elsewhere. basically if you care about that data it's very unwise to only have one copy of it regardless of this Windows or Linux stuff.

Linux can do basic file transfers on NTFS well enough. but in my experience but it works better/faster with EXT4. file transfers are faster on EXT4 than they are on NTFS and I noticed one issue with torrents completing when I was using NTFS for the first year or so before I switched pretty much all of my hard drives over to EXT4 from NTFS and that torrent issue disappeared. but basically unless your planning on going back to Windows at some point I would just put the entire drive as EXT4.

p.s. Windows 10 is supported until Oct 2025. so if you don't want to risk it for now, you can continue to use that safely for years to come.

[AndyMH]

You cannot install mint to C:, mint needs to install to a linux filesystem, ext4.

In win, use win's disk management tools to shrink the C: and possibly the D: partition to create space for mint. Leave the space unallocated. As suggested 40-50GB, the more the better. You may need to move the D: partition so all the space is one single contiguous area.

Before you install mint:

• disable secure boot in BIOS

• in win10 turn off fast start/boot if you want read/write access to D: from mint.

When you install mint select the 'install alongside' option.

[axrusar]

that? I don't have any spare PC, so data safety is a must.

Please get an external backup medium (or cloud storage) FIRST and before you try anything.
Regardless of what OS you use, it sounds like the data is important to you.
I don't have enough fingers to count how many of my customers lost their data due to HDD crashes or user mistakes, tears included.
Then you can safely play with the disk and if anything goes wrong you are all backed up and happy. Why bother leaving the existing windows partitions anyway? if you are starting fresh, its better to plan the partitioning layout and go from there. IMO

[djph]

I don't have enough fingers to count how many of my customers lost their data due to HDD crashes or user mistakes, tears included.

Yeah, I don't get this mentality in the least ... stuff fails, it always has. And yet, nobody spends the hundred bucks (whatever) for an external USB drive for backups ... but then get all "sure I'll throw $1k at a maybe".

[cliffcoggin]

If data safery is so important then make an external backup of that data before even thinking about installing another OS.

[Termy]

Linux has no concept of drive letters

That's actually not quite right. Storage devices do go by drive letters, just not in the same way as in Windows. So, my first (as recognised) drive is '/dev/sda', the second '/dev/sdb', and so on. This is referred to as the block device name. Then there are partitions on the drive, such as '/dev/sda1' meaning the first partition on the first drive. This doesn't always apply though, such as for optical drives, you may have '/dev/sr0' and '/dev/sr1', etc.

I interpret 'assigning a drive letter' in Windows as 'mounting a filesystem' in Linux.

I know I'm being pedantic, but I wanted to avoid confusion.

[Petermint]

A million people use Windows and Linux in dual boot with a shared NTFS drive D.

* If fast boot is on in the BIOS, Windows will leave NTFS in a damaged state that Linux will see as a locked drive. Switching off fast boot makes Windows close the NTFS partitions properly.

* Ext4 is way ahead of NTFS in many ways, similar to the lead NTFS had over Ext3. You will want an Ext4 partition for the Linux system and eventually an Ext4 partition for your home directory.

* The safest way to resize NTFS is in Windows. Backup. resize. Backup.

* The Linux Mint live boot contains Gparted to make new partitions completely under your control. Backup. Allocate. Backup.

* The LM install process has some stupid defaults you should not use for dual boot. The LM install also has an "other" option where you can work on partitions similar to Gparted. To me, the "other" option is more difficult than Gparted. Backup. Create the partitions in Gparted. Backup. Select "other" just to select the partitions you created. Backup.

* List the existing partitions from Gparted or similar. We can provide better advice on the backup, reallocation, backup process.

* If you do not have 50 GB spare, it is time for a disk upgrade. You would copy the old disk to the new disk and keep the old one as one of your backups.

Backup. Backup. Backup.

[Peter Linu]

An alternate solution:
My first dual boot took ages to install correctly, needed a lot of help and was always subject to the vagaries of GRUB. I put up with it for 2+ years and finally, after yet another meltdown, I migrated to a full install of LM. Win10 (and other O/Ss) are happily on Oracle VM Virtualbox without a single twinge or problem.

[kevin987]

An alternate solution:
My first dual boot took ages to install correctly, needed a lot of help and was always subject to the vagaries of GRUB. I put up with it for 2+ years and finally, after yet another meltdown, I migrated to a full install of LM. Win10 (and other O/Ss) are happily on Oracle VM Virtualbox without a single twinge or problem.

Bingo.

Put Win 10 in Virtual and create a much better experience overall, especially if boot issues are being caused by dual booting.

Hint: Get the Win 10 key before wiping it, so it won't complain on the new install.

[djph]

Linux has no concept of drive letters

That's actually not quite right. Storage devices do go by drive letters, just not in the same way as in Windows
[...]
I know I'm being pedantic, but I wanted to avoid confusion.

Yeah, but I'm trying to keep it to "introductory class" levels and oversimplifying the entire thing to (hopefully ) avoid a situation of misunderstanding / getting tripped up and into a situation of "I only deleted /dev/hda4, why is my D:\ drive gone in Windows! I didn't touch anything named D:\!!!"

Kind of like when we all were kids and learning about the solar system and orbits, and our teachers / schoolbooks described everything in simple terms (e.g. circular orbits all along a flat plane). Then we get to middle school (high school?) and science class is "so, right -- everything you learned about orbits was simplistic, here's a better picture" .... and then you get to college and it's the same "so right ... that was ALSO simplistic... ".

[t42]

Linux has no concept of drive letters

That's true. And said in reply to that next passage is wrong:

Storage devices do go by drive letters, just not in the same way as in Windows. So, my first (as recognised) drive is '/dev/sda', the second '/dev/sdb', and so on

The letters in /dev/sdX are signifying the order in which the device was found by the system. In Windows the drive letters are meaningful as they are identifiers to volumes. If you reassign the drive letters in Windows for some reason they will stay that way.
My filesystem root is now /dev/sdb6 because I started the system with the USB device already connected and this device took /dev/sda but on previous boot the root was on /dev/sda6. Also, what is the uniqueness of "a letter" in /dev/sda and /dev/hda, plus /dev/nvme0n1p1 - compare with Windows alphabetical identifiers.

[JerryF]

...
Bingo.

Put Win 10 in Virtual and create a much better experience overall, especially if boot issues are being caused by dual booting.

Hint: Get the Win 10 key before wiping it, so it won't complain on the new install.

That may not work. If Windows 10 version is OEM and you install it into a VM, you may have issues because Microsoft telemetry may see that as breach.

I've had that problem in the past even when I deactivated Windows on the machine and then activating it in the VM.

[Peter Linu]

That may not work. If Windows 10 version is OEM and you install it into a VM, you may have issues because Microsoft telemetry may see that as breach.
I've had that problem in the past even when I deactivated Windows on the machine and then activating it in the VM

SOLUTION (that I discovered totally by accident):
Download the latest and burn it to a DOUBLE dvd - a single DVD is not large enough (that I'm sure Win does on purpose). Apply your existing license.

[Termy]

...

True, and thank you for the extra knowledge about Windows. The point I was making is that drive letters are still used in Linux. As you quoted, I did point out that it wasn't in the same way. I think this has been beaten to death now, though. Moving on...