During installation, I noticed something perhaps unusual that I want to address before install.
I’ve got:
Windows 11: /dev/nvme0n1
Windows 10: /dev/sdb
And just general NTFS partitions on /sdc and /sdd for extra windows apps (mostly empty)
I was planning to use systemd-boot but shrink the /sdb4 partition to run along side before completely wiping out the W10 install down the line, however when I got to EFI partition I was a little surprised that the choices were /sda1 and /sdc1.
Not sure what the best course of action is on the EFI partition or if I should just do a new one and then modify to update with the W11 and W10 options?
I don’t have any issues on my dualboot setups, but I made sure to set up separate EFI-bootloader for each OS instance.
Some systems don’t seem to mix well with certain bootloaders and especially Windows seems to seize control and breaks compatibility on it’s bootloader.
If it were me i would wipe out the Windows 10 installation on sdb in order to install EOS on that drive by itself to dual boot with Windows 11. I would also make sure the other discs sda, sdc, sdd are wiped and converted to gpt discs first. Then install EOS on sdb as gpt disk in UEFI. I don’t know what you have on sda, sdc and sdd but it would make sense to have all gpt disks since your system is uefi. This is how i would set it up.
My initial plan was to wipe /sdb and install EOS there, but then I got down this rabbit hole of trying to do it on a partitioned disk. That’s straight forward enough.
I could wipe the other discs. There isn’t anything that would prevent me from doing that, but I would like to keep /sda as a NTFS drive. Can i still setup NTFS partitions on GPT discs? I’m pretty sure yes, but want to check. (looks like /sdb already does that, which is a w11 disk)
What’s the best method to format, setup GPT partition table, and add the NTFS partitions? The built in Partition manager ?
Back to the original question. Assuming I did what you recommend, where would ESP go?
Yes NTFS fs can be on gpt disk. Just let EOS install the boot loader. Right now it looks like the efi partition is on sdb. The esp will likely get installed with EOS on the same disc. I’m just not sure if it recreates the Windows files if the efi on Windows gets erased since I’m assuming it’s using that one to boot Windows 11.
If it doesn’t recreate the windows files on the new EFI, what then?
BTW, I don’t think the default during the live installer was /sdb. It was /sdc or /sdd. New was an option, but not default. If the ESP is already on /sdb, why wouldn’t it be an option to select?
Not sure why the default wouldn’t be either the drive you are installing eos on or sdb which has the Windows efi. But you can select new as an option. I can’t say if it recreates the Windows files in the new efi since it’s wiping out the current efi and creating a new one of the proper size. The current Windows efi is only 104 mb. Maybe @pebcak is more certain than I or has a better way.
For multi-boot EFI installations on several hard disks please install Windowses on one disk (/dev/sda) or two separate disks (/dev/sda and /dev/sdb) and linuxes on third disk /dev/sdc → change the target disk via BIOS/UEFI menu.
I have my Win install on a dedicated drive that only holds windows … and i do the same for Linux installs… i have some like 5 … so i do a sixtiboot ? not experiencing any issues since… i do use “boot once” menu to change boot and every install has their own ESP efi partition.
I need to look if the existing EFI is an option with the installer. It seems like that might be the best course, but still update those other disks to GPT.
Then switch from systemd-boot to something like rEFInd
I also dual boot windows 11 with eos on btrfs with grub and it is fantastic. Windows is installed on my nvme drive and eos is installed on an ssd. eos has it’s own efi and i left the windows efi untouched.
[ricklinux@asus-tuff ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 1000M 0 part /boot/efi
└─sda2 8:2 0 464.8G 0 part /var/log
/var/cache
/home
/swap
/
sdb 8:16 0 3.6T 0 disk
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
nvme0n1 259:0 0 447.1G 0 disk
├─nvme0n1p1 259:1 0 100M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p2 259:2 0 16M 0 part
├─nvme0n1p3 259:3 0 446.4G 0 part
└─nvme0n1p4 259:4 0 660M 0 part
Or better maybe?
[ricklinux@asus-tuff ~]$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA WDC WDS500G2B0A- (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 2097kB 1051MB 1049MB fat32 boot, esp
2 1051MB 500GB 499GB btrfs endeavouros
Model: ATA ST4000DM004-2CV1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 4001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
Model: Force MP500 (nvme)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 480GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot, esp, no_automount
2 106MB 123MB 16.8MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres, no_automount
3 123MB 479GB 479GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata, no_automount
4 479GB 480GB 692MB ntfs hidden, diag, no_automount
