Hello wonderful people here! I don’t know if BIOS-related questions are covered here but seeing how helpful this community is, it’s worth a shot.
When I first got this Lenovo laptop it had two storage devices installed, an SSD with Windows 10 preinstalled and an HDD. When I first tried to install Linux, (back then Pop OS before I found this beautiful distro ), it couldn’t see the SSD so I had no choice but to install on my HDD.
Now I want to try again and reinstall EOS on a separate partition on my SSD because I want to use that extra read/write speed. According to this, I have to switch RAID to AHCI and this other guide here tells me I can do that without requiring a reinstall of Windows (since I still need Windows for some compatibility reasons and the premium license it came with). Following the guide above, I got into my BIOS settings and tried switching from RST (I’m assuming that’s RAID?) to AHCI. A warning prompts me that all data on my drives would be deleted. I want to be on the safe side and ask if it does indeed erase data on both disks, otherwise the guide I linked above maybe doesn’t work at all.
RST = "Rapid Start Technology“ or better „Rapid Storage Technology“; yes, this is used in combination with RAID setups.
Changing SATA configuration in BIOS from RAID to AHCI in order to recognize SSD’s shouldn’t have any influence on the drives data. It’s probably just the bios manufacturer trying to be on the safe side and not to be accountable for an data loss.
But you may have to “repair” your Windows installation to automatically start with AHCI drivers enabled. Maybe read up on this beforehand; here for example.
[Edit] I just noticed I provided the same link you already had posted . Should have followed your links first …
Ohh I understand now. Thank you so much for the clarifications, @2000!
While you’re here, I have some additional questions. Is it possible to migrate EOS to another partition( in this case to the SSD partition I’m about to make?) or would you recommend just reinstalling from scratch again?
Possible, yes. It mostly depends on how much you’ve added to the base install and how long it would take you to get back to that state from scratch; also are partitions encrypted etc…
I personally find it much faster installing from scratch, installing the additional packages I want in one go (with the help from a formerly backed up package list) and then restore my home from a recent backup (or you could just copy /home/user over from the other drive).
But if you want to go the migration route we’ll certainly try and help you out on getting it done.
), it couldn’t see the SSD so I had no choice but to install on my HDD.