Hey guys, after 2 years since my last attempt (and recently trying fedora on my laptop) Im ready to try again to install it on my desktop. First time I installed Nobara and it nuked my windows boots partition which caused a lot of trouble and trauma (couldnt boot into windows no matter what). Basically I want to accomplish this:

1- I want to install Fedora on a separate drive and keep my windows drive completely intact (Need it for work).
2- Preferably I would like GRUB to ask which boot option I want to use if my linux drive is set to be my boot drive and to boot straight to windows if its my windows drive set to boot.

Can someone please guide me into installing it the safest way possible?

  • BaumGeist@lemmy.ml
    5·
    2 days ago

    Can someone please guide me into installing it the safest way possible?

    1. Get the installation image you want to use. Fedora has a lot of different flavors, I think they call them “spins,” so it’s important to know the difference and choose the right one for you.

    2. Install it on a VM in VirtualBox. Play around with it, figure out what all the installation steps do, don’t be afraid to break the VM.

    3. Play around with the VM in fullscreen just to get a feel for it. Don’t blame the OS for performance issues, that’s probably just the resource limitations of a VM.

    4. Repeat steps 1-3 as necessary to find an OS that is comfortable enough to be your daily driver.

    5. Use a program like Rufus to make a bootable USB out of the installation image.

    6. Run the installer like you practiced. MAKE SURE YOU SELECT THE CORRECT HARDDRIVE, DON’T OVERWRITE YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE. Otherwise, besides MAKING EXTRA SURE ABOUT WHICH HARDDRIVE YOU INSTALL IT TO, use defaults for settings you aren’t sure about.

    I want to install Fedora on a separate drive and keep my windows drive completely intact (Need it for work).

    I cannot stress the above warning enough: formatting the drive is the one step in installation that cannot be undone. If you format your windows drive, you cannot ever recover that data anymore.

    Since it’s work related hardware, I have 2 pieces of advice; you should follow one or the other:

    1. Don’t. Don’t fuck around with work hardware. It should be a separate PC that you literally only ever use to get work done. Whether it’s owned by a company or you’re self-employeed, mixing your hobby/leisure/gaming/tinker/daily driver with your work computer is a baaaaaad idea. You will get something all fuzzed up, you will try to fix it by reinstalling the OS or otherwise doing disk formatting/partitioning, and you will end up corrupting windows.

    2. Okay, so you decided not to heed my warning because you like gaming (or whatever) too much and can’t afford a separate desktop/tower rn. i get it, I did the same once and lived to tell the tale (i do have separate machines now, fwiw). In that case, before you install fedora, simply disconnect the Windows drive. Yank it right out and don’t reinstall it until you’ve got linux up and running just how you like it. Not just after the installation, but after the configuration. Then there’s no chance you accidentally format/corrupt your drive.

    Preferably I would like GRUB to ask which boot option I want to use if my linux drive is set to be my boot drive and to boot straight to windows if its my windows drive set to boot.

    If the installer gives you the option, simply install Grub on the same drive as Linux. When you select the linux drive in your BIOS’ boot options, it will run grub, which will give you options, including booting into windows if you want. When you select the windows drive in your BIOS’ boot options, it will use the windows bootloader (which boots straight into windows, unless you have multiple windows installations).

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    2·
    2 days ago

    If you mean different physical drives, I would suggest detatching the drive with the already installed system when installing the second one.

    Also, Linux installers may behave differently from one another, so I would suggest testing on another machine if possible, or at least backing up what you cannot afford to lose in the current machine, shrinking the Windows partition with its native partition manager instead, and picking a system whose installer can spot the correct partitions, maybe e.g. Mint with its option to be installed alongside an already installed system, or Endeavour which, from what I remember, can detect empty partitions.

    Also if during install, grub is not set up to have both Linux and Windows as start options, there is a grub manager on Linux too, so that can be salvaged.

    And lastly, a word of warning, and reiterating a past point, testing something as big as a dual boot in a computer with sensitive and already existing data is playing with fire.

  • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    2 days ago

    For new users the main question is not what operating system but what window manager as that is what shapes day to day user interaction. KDE plasma is a solid choice.

    Installing it on a separate drive should be no problem. Just select the correct drive during install.

    I use F10 to get to the boot menu on drive and select the drive it needs to boot from there. I have used it once in the last year and although it required many updates its still working.

  • blayd@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 days ago

    Did you manually partition? It sounds like when you installed Nobara the /boot/efi partition got formatted, a similar thing happened to me recently (just wasnt paying attention), I used a Windows install USB to get a command prompt and restore the EFI entry.