Installing Linux (mint)?

[Mark Kaine]

So if I use a fresh SSD and remove the SSD with my windows 10 install but leave my other hard drives in the PC, will that work and will Linux be able to read the data on those hard drives (games, media files, etc)?

 

And is there anything I need to to beforehand? 

 

Ie. I just want to try out Mint, and for that I need it to be able to see my stuff, otherwise how can I test it? I get that I need to install most programs again, but games, pictures, videos, etc, it should be able to read and use those, right? 

[Kilrah]

Yes. 

I would disconnect all drives during the install though. Once done you can connect them all again including the one with Windows. 

[Needfuldoer]

Disconnect your Windows drive, install Linux, then reconnect your Windows drive. That way, your Windows drive and all the data on it is guaranteed to be safe from accidental formatting.

 

You'll use your BIOS boot menu to pick which OS you want to boot into for that session.

 

If you were permanently dual-booting, you'd want the Windows and Linux bootloaders to coexist, that way you'd get a menu for picking which OS you want without having to invoke a menu manually every time.

[YoungBlade]

Linux Mint comes with the ability to read NTFS filesystems out of the box, so your files should be accessible and you should be able to play your games if they are supported in Wine/Proton.

 

But do note that reading and writing to NTFS filesystems is not actually natively supported by the kernel. On rare occasions, you can have issues. It is miles better than what it was a decade ago. If this were 2013, I would probably advise against doing this without backing up your data on those drives first. But in 2025, you're probably fine.

 

If it's anything super critical, you should still have a backup, but just because that's good practice. Not because there's a high likelihood that Linux will bork your data.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, Needfuldoer said:

Disconnect your Windows drive, install Linux, then reconnect your Windows drive. That way, your Windows drive and all the data on it is guaranteed to be safe from accidental formatting.

 

You'll use your BIOS boot menu to pick which OS you want to boot into for that session.

 

If you were permanently dual-booting, you'd want the Windows and Linux bootloaders to coexist, that way you'd get a menu for picking which OS you want without having to invoke a menu manually every time.

I don't want to dual boot, I just want it to be able to read my non OS drives (I have 4)

 

5 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

Yes. 

I would disconnect all drives during the install though. Once done you can connect them all again including the one with Windows. 

Yeah, I was afraid that's the suggestion because otherwise it could just format those drives "by accident"... It's just really finicky to remove them lol, but yeh, I don't want my windows drive in it, there's almost nothing there, just some videos, a couple of programs and a version of "PlayStation Home" (which is gigantic in size btw! ) 

[YoungBlade]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

Yeah, I was afraid that's the suggestion because otherwise it could just format those drives "by accident"... It's just really finicky to remove them lol, but yeh, I don't want my windows drive in it, there's almost nothing there, just some videos, a couple of programs and a version of "PlayStation Home" (which is gigantic in size btw! ) 

I have never had Linux break my trust by doing anything out of the ordinary with other drives during the install.

 

However, I always do manual partitioning during the install process. Maybe the automated install could cause an issue, but I doubt it. And even then, it will toss up a page explaining what partitioning it's going to do before it does it.

 

Unlike Windows, I would trust Linux Mint in this case. Assuming you set up the partition scheme or can at least read its output when it explains what it's going to do before the install happens.

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

If it's anything super critical, you should still have a backup, but just because that's good practice. Not because there's a high likelihood that Linux will bork your data

Ya I mean I would backup but that's like roughly 10TB... a bit much to ask for just trying out Linux...  

(I have most of that stuff backed up anyway but it's also about the structure, hard to find stuff with that much data if you don't know where it is! )

[Needfuldoer]

You could always pick up an Optiplex or something and use that as your experimentation platform.

 

5 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Ya I mean I would backup but that's like roughly 10TB... a bit much to ask for just trying out Linux...  

(I have most of that stuff backed up anyway but it's also about the structure, hard to find stuff with that much data if you don't know where it is! )

Sounds like somebody needs a NAS.  

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

You could always pick up an Optiplex or something and use that as your experimentation platform.

I could also just build a second PC (I have all parts, except hard drive... ) that's not such a bad idea...

I mean I'm just skeptical about 2 things with Linux more or less, how will my Nvidia card work and can I install mods like on windows.

I do not ever play games without mods, if I did I could just buy a PS5

 

^ OW is the only game without mods, I mean there are some for UI and such but eh, why bother I just wanna shoot stuffs I don't really care about the UI much lol

[Lurking]

21 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I could also just build a second PC (I have all parts, except hard drive... ) that's not such a bad idea...

I mean I'm just skeptical about 2 things with Linux more or less, how will my Nvidia card work and can I install mods like on windows.

I do not ever play games without mods, if I did I could just buy a PS5

 

^ OW is the only game without mods, I mean there are some for UI and such but eh, why bother I just wanna shoot stuffs I don't really care about the UI much lol

Does Mint allow a persistent USB drive installation? If so, you could just use the flash drive to install all you need for a few days. Basically like a real installation, but on USB stick. 

 

And if you like it and decide to keep using Linux, you can create a live iso from your "new" setup and then install that directly to your internal drive and you don't have to re-do all the setup again. This should should be a 1:1 clone inc. Google/amazon passwords you entered etc. That way the work you put in testing and "making it yours" isn't wasted. Just try to not screw things up (because screw ups also will be on that iso)

 

I found this (elaborate) dual boot setup guide. It is written for MX Linux, but may work for all distros.

 

Someone with Nvidia and Mint experience can tell if this is a good choice. I don't use Nvidia. but i know some OS have specific Nvidia tools etc. to make that easier. May have to backport some newer things since Mint is based on an old Ubuntu LTS. Not sure if Mint has backporting built in out of the box. 

 

And unless you have m.2 drives, you don't need to physically REMOVE them. Just unplug the SATA or power cables to each drive. 

[Nayr438]

17 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

But do note that reading and writing to NTFS filesystems is not actually natively supported by the kernel. 

NTFS has been part of the kernel since 2021 with the introduction of NTFS3 from Paragon, https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/ntfs3.html

Now whether a distro defaults to this or the user space fuse driver when using udisks is another thing. 

 

With that note there are various compatibilities issues with NTFS mostly around permissions and naming.

While it does work, Linux native software may not always play nice with it.

If you have mount problems in Linux check here first, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS#Unable_to_mount_with_ntfs3_with_partition_marked_dirty

 

If you plan to use steam with NTFS do look at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Using-a-NTFS-disk-with-Linux-and-Windows

I would probably replace ntfs-3g in the guide with ntfs3 and add nofail to its options list so the system doesn't panic during boot if it can't mount.
Any time you make changes to /etc/fstab always do 

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo mount -a

This will tell you if there is anything wrong with the fstab before you reboot, do not reboot if this errors as you will probably land in emergency mode.

 

I will note that I have personally had windows randomly reject partitions after being used in Linux using both the new NTFS3 Driver and fuse ntfs-3g driver. I'm not alone on this as I have met other people who have had similar issues but at the same time I have met many people who have done this for years and have never had issues, YMMV.

 

If you dualboot disable Windows Fast Startup, if you reboot and a device isn't working then boot back into Windows and do a full shutdown. Windows can leave devices in weird states that Linux doesn't know what to do with. From my experience WiFi Cards often tend to be the most problematic here for some reason.