Dual Boot, 2xSSD and 1xHDD (Windows & Linux)

[yannic]

Hello guys, here is my situation:

 

I'm currently building my first PC and I am struggling with my dual boot options (I am completely new to this and have never installed an OS before=.

I have 2  "500GB Samsung SSDs" on which I want to install the OS( Windows and Linux) and I want two use the 1TB HDD as storage that is viewable from both OS (SSDs).

 

1. Do I have all drives connected during the whole process?

I was reading about disconnecting windows SSD when installing linux.

 

2. Can the two SSD see each other? (Is it possible to disable the SSDs from seeing each other?)

 

3.Do I need to do something specific with the HDD for booth OS to see it?

 

4.Can I just follow normal instructions for installing the OS or do I need to follow somethin specific?

 

5. Any pitfalls I need to know about???

 

Thank you in advance!

 

 

 

 

[SupaKomputa]

Don't do dual boot, i have a better option. 

Install each OS in each SSD without any other drive connected.

Then when you want to boot from a different OS you just hit F11 to bring up the quick boot selection (the key maybe different).

With this method you won't have problems like compability or if boot sector corrupted or you changed drive in the future.

 

1. You can connect all drive, but for my method please connect one at a time.

2. Yes if you install the driver for each OS, windows install Ext2Fsd to see linux drive, linux install NTFS-3g to see windows drive.

3. No

4. Yes, just follow normal installation

5. No, it would be just as a normal OS.

[nikosgevre]

Don't know if you actually already have done something about it but since you didn't mark the post as answered i will give you my opinion in what you want to do, even though i came quite late to the party .

You can install windows first on any one of the ssd's. After installing windows as normal as you would install windows in any device, just go on and install linux in your system. It will try to install it in the same drive as your windows installation drive and that's ok. You can install linux along side windows (pick that option in the appropriate screen). In the installation process you will be asked to select how much space you want your linux partition to be and there will be a bar you can move and adjust how much disk space your windows device has and how much your linux will have (that happens on ubuntu installation process, not sure for other linux distros). You can select as little as you want to be honest. Now after this point you will have one ssd with two os (operating systems). Some gb for windows and the rest for linux. The other two drives (the one ssd and your hdd) will be accessible from both operating systems and you can save in them whatever you want. Theoretically, I guess you want linux for work and windows for every day use (...?), so I would go for 100gb for linux and the rest 400gb for the windows (from the one ssd that will have both os installed) and the other two drives will be accessible to use them from both os. The disk space that will be part of the operating system (100 gb for linux and 400 gb for windows in my example) is "seen" from both os. If you want to divide them totally equal you can just select 250 gb for each of the operating systems.
By installing linux secondly (after windows installation) you also install the grub system that linux installs for you. Grub is a bootloader package. When you start your pc you see a screen with a list of the available operating systems and you have by default (i think, but probable wrong for a few seconds ) 7 seconds to choose one os to boot before it automatically boots in the default choice which will be the linux os. You can change the time and the default choice through linux (you can google search how to do that, its not difficult).

In my computer I didn't have to do anything to be able to see an extra hdd from both os.

You can just follow the standard instructions of how you install windows and linux on the same drive as dual boot (i roughly already explained them).

I used ubuntu for my linux partition and didn't encounter any problems.

Another solution is, though quite tricky and not recommended for heavy work and highly depends no how good your computer is, to set up a virtual machine. I used it for a while and still use when i just need a quick linux experience but when i need to work properly i just boot on my linux partition.

 

In the end, obviously, the solution already given to you previously in this post is working perfectly fine. I am just giving some alternatives here.