Hi! I was hoping someone would be able to give me some pointers on how to approach this safely without wiping my current EFI partition for EOS.
Sadly iLOK USB key for music doesn’t work with linux, so in the meantime I need to run W11 on second drive dual boot.
Question is then, is there a way to install W11 on my second NVME without it wiping the EFI of my main NVME/EOS install?
If it wipes it, what can I do to restore it? I opted to try Systemd this time around instead of GRUB. Not sure what the implications are in terms of backup between the two. I knew GRUB from hackintosh days. I digress.
Ps. hope this is the correct sub. If not, my apologies.
Well the way I see it is that the safest way to go is , install Windows first on drive 1 and EOS on drive 2 next, both with efi partitions on there own, if possilble. The chance that windows will wipe the efi partition on drive 2 (EOS) will be small I think , but you never know because it is windows. Anyway if this would happen there is the Wiki available on how to restore the bootloader of EOS.
When I installed Endeavour I followed the steps Keescase mentioned and thankfully 6 months later no issues.
If the boot process messes up, it’s always possible to chroot in from a live USB to fix. I need to use this recently when updating my aging laptop failed to recognise the kernel. There is a page in this forum with great instructions on how to do it.
Thanks. Did you make a backup of your EFI or is that not necessary with the live USB to fix the EFI?
I’m debating just pulling out the EOS drive while installing Windows and then put it back in afterwards. Just to be sure. Dunno if it’s overkill I’ll look for the thread. Much appreciated!
Thanks for the reply! I just set up EOS and would rather not have to do it again as it took me 2 days.
Do you think taking out the EOS drive and install Win. Then insert it again would be enough of a safeguard? I read that updates to Windows can cause it to wipe EFIs for Linux I’ll dig into the Wiki. Thanks!
I didn’t make a backup as my next step in my Linux learning journey was to tackle chroot anyway.
I didn’t need it for my main install, as mentioned above it’s ticking along nicely.
Another option for you is virt manager. If you only use windows for a couple of apps, you can install it on a virtual machine. I had Windows 10 on one for a while, again just tinkering to learn more about it.
This is what I would recommend instead of dual booting. If you need a Windows system then you should just dedicate a Machine to windows and Leave linux to its own device. However Switching out the Drive will be the next best thing. Keep them Separate as much as possible. And Remember Just because you can’t see you Linux in Windows doesn’t mean that Microsoft can’t.
Thanks for the reply. Did a Clonezilla backup, it wiped and completely wrecked both my source and destination backup somehow. It corrupted half my system. After a lengthy process trying to restore it I gave up.
Installed EOS again and then decided to try Windows on the second NVME. That resulted in EFI installed randomly on a external drive I forgot to detatch, and the EFI on Linux getting borked, even tho I took out the NVME during install for Windows.
Finally got it rebuilt, but now the system is acting a bit wonky. Not sure if it’s worth trying to resolve vs just starting over. Lack enough technical depth to solve it, and I don’t trust AI models as they keep spinning in circles, even tho they solve it in the end, a lot of extra steps and possibly mistakes being made on the way.
I’ll keep it in mind though, and possibly run Windows in a VM if I need it onward. Sadly Win is a necessity for specific audio and music production (classical scoring).
I did see some users adding double EFI on their drive. Having Windows first, then linux EFI so that Windows doesn’t overwrite the linux one.
I’m going to use it for music production, mainly scoring and classical work which is quite CPU and ram intensive. I do have a virt-manager KVM set up. used it to try and pass through iLok, but I lost it when my system got corrupt yesterday. Appreciate the tip though!
Sadly it seems to happen during updates for many, so I just landed on not doing it. I’ll see if VM works once I get a GPU. I also see others do dual EFI on the same drive, and then just install Windows first so that EFI gets first slot, make an empty slot between EFI and main drive, split main drive in 2 and have linux on each second portion. Might try it next time I nuke the system.
Are you sure there is no possibility of it misplacing the EFI? Windows 11 installed the EFI on a mounted external drive I forgot to dismount. I’ve read others have lost their EFI on Linux after Windows update. I guess the chance is much smaller, but still there. Not a big deal as long as one makes an iso of the EFI and keep it on the live USB to quickly restore it if it gets overwritten.
You could remove the esp,boot flag from your Linux EFI system partition. This will not affect the functioning of your Linux.
Windows will then just see a FAT32 partition and shouldn’t care about it. At least it was so when I last installed Windows (after Linux) a good while back.
This should be valid for Windows updates/upgrades too.
When i installed linux on a external drive it did not happen. I even installed linux on the second drive and windows on the first drive back in 2021. During boot i pressed f9 to switch the boot order
Windows never touched that disc for me, both had their own stuff on the disc.
I was hoping someone would be able to give me some pointers on how to approach this safely without wiping my current EFI partition for EOS.
I’ll look for the thread. Much appreciated!
I’ll dig into the Wiki. Thanks!