Hey linuxmemes, I’ve got a question, can I straight up install linux on a windows computer and have access to all my files as they’ve been laid out by windows, or am I going to have to use an external backup to move my files ‘out of windows’ and ‘into linux’?
Like I’m getting sicker and sicker of windows pulling their whole attitude of " Weve got an update for you, give us all your data. Give it. What do you mean “right to privacy”? That’s only for companies and billionaires."
The answers might have confused you due to the unfortunate phrasing of the question. Let me clarify:
-Linux installation requires a separate partition. This can be your D:/ drive from Windows, a completely new physical drive, or a partition you free up on any drive using the Windows Disk Management.
-This partition will be wiped upon installation. Back everything up from there.
-All other partitions, including drive C:/, will be fully accessible from Linux.
-Your Linux partition will not be visible from Windows. There are ways to interact with it from there, but they are neither convenient nor fully functional, and you probably shouldn’t rely on it.
Overall, it’s always a good strategy to back up everything important before installing a new system or reinstalling old one, but you probably know this already and this is not a strict technical requirement - just a peace of mind tip.
Many linux installers give you the option of using the free space in your Windows drive for a linux partition (Linux mint is one example). Then you would have what is called a dual boot setup. It means every time you start your computer, you can choose Linux or Windows.
Then you disable bitlocker in your windows partition, and you can access all the files there from linux.
Nah, decryption is easy because it’s based on standards.
But you’re right about the NTFS support. I only use it to read data from external drives. I tried to use it to have a dual boot setup with a shared Steam library but that had some issues.
I’ve since completely dumped Windows, problem solved.
If all of your partitions are in a single NTFS drive it probably wise to make a backup, if it in a separate drive you can access it in Linux (read only, if you want to write into it you need to install “ntfs-3g” package)
Contrary to other comments, it’s actually pretty common and easy to install Linux alongside Windows, if you have a harddrive big enough for both. If you want to have both installed, it is recommend to start with Windows because Linux boot loader can recognise Windows partition and integrate it with no problem. And Linux natively supports ntfs so you can seamlessly access all your files absolutely no problem.
But if it’s your first time installing Linux it’s easy to mess up and kill the windows partition if you aren’t good with terminology yet, so backing up all your files is not just recommended but straight up required.
Much better to install Linux, install a virtual machine (GNOME Boxes) in which you run what you still need Windows for, and access files via a Samba service as shared files.
Or just switch to Linux, and copy your files. It is good for daily use.
Generally, no. You can’t install Linux onto a Windows filesystem (NTFS). What you can do is one of these things:
Back up the files you care about (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, whatever) in Google Drive, Dropbox, a thumb drive or anywhere else that you can access later. Then you can tell the Linux installer to wipe Windows and afterwards put your important files back.
If you have a spare SSD you can put Linux on that. Then you can access the Windows drive from Linux. You might have to install an NTFS driver first, and you will definitely need to configure Windows to shut down properly instead of secretly hibernating, because that leaves the filesystem in a weird state and Linux won’t be able to open it.
If you don’t have a spare SSD you can still do the same trick by shrinking the Windows/NTFS filesystem and installing Linux in the now-free space on the same drive. Among Sysadmins shrinking filesystems has a bad reputation because at least historically it could (rarely) fail and destroy all your data, so I would not recommend you do it but it is possible and in most cases it works without issues.
Each of these comes with some risk - You might forget to copy over important files onto your thumb drive, or you might make a mistake in the Linux installer and accidentally delete Windows when you didn’t mean to. That said you should already have a backup strategy, because your PC could also just spontaneously die and lose the data even if you do nothing. If you have backups and you’ve tested them to know that you really can restore all the files you care about, then even that first option stops looking very scary.
Hey linuxmemes, I’ve got a question, can I straight up install linux on a windows computer and have access to all my files as they’ve been laid out by windows, or am I going to have to use an external backup to move my files ‘out of windows’ and ‘into linux’?
Like I’m getting sicker and sicker of windows pulling their whole attitude of " Weve got an update for you, give us all your data. Give it. What do you mean “right to privacy”? That’s only for companies and billionaires."
The answers might have confused you due to the unfortunate phrasing of the question. Let me clarify:
-Linux installation requires a separate partition. This can be your D:/ drive from Windows, a completely new physical drive, or a partition you free up on any drive using the Windows Disk Management. -This partition will be wiped upon installation. Back everything up from there. -All other partitions, including drive C:/, will be fully accessible from Linux. -Your Linux partition will not be visible from Windows. There are ways to interact with it from there, but they are neither convenient nor fully functional, and you probably shouldn’t rely on it.
Overall, it’s always a good strategy to back up everything important before installing a new system or reinstalling old one, but you probably know this already and this is not a strict technical requirement - just a peace of mind tip.
Many linux installers give you the option of using the free space in your Windows drive for a linux partition (Linux mint is one example). Then you would have what is called a dual boot setup. It means every time you start your computer, you can choose Linux or Windows.
Then you disable bitlocker in your windows partition, and you can access all the files there from linux.
You can access bitlocker drives from Linux too, it’s a bit of a pain but all you need is the recovery key.
https://github.com/Aorimn/dislocker
Good to know. Though with how flaky regular NTFS support is, I expect this to be worse still.
Nah, decryption is easy because it’s based on standards.
But you’re right about the NTFS support. I only use it to read data from external drives. I tried to use it to have a dual boot setup with a shared Steam library but that had some issues.
I’ve since completely dumped Windows, problem solved.
If all of your partitions are in a single NTFS drive it probably wise to make a backup, if it in a separate drive you can access it in Linux (read only, if you want to write into it you need to install “ntfs-3g” package)
Contrary to other comments, it’s actually pretty common and easy to install Linux alongside Windows, if you have a harddrive big enough for both. If you want to have both installed, it is recommend to start with Windows because Linux boot loader can recognise Windows partition and integrate it with no problem. And Linux natively supports ntfs so you can seamlessly access all your files absolutely no problem. But if it’s your first time installing Linux it’s easy to mess up and kill the windows partition if you aren’t good with terminology yet, so backing up all your files is not just recommended but straight up required.
You’ll need to migrate your files somehow. Installing linux over windows generally entails reformatting, which will erase everything.
Much better to install Linux, install a virtual machine (GNOME Boxes) in which you run what you still need Windows for, and access files via a Samba service as shared files.
Or just switch to Linux, and copy your files. It is good for daily use.
Generally, no. You can’t install Linux onto a Windows filesystem (NTFS). What you can do is one of these things:
Back up the files you care about (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, whatever) in Google Drive, Dropbox, a thumb drive or anywhere else that you can access later. Then you can tell the Linux installer to wipe Windows and afterwards put your important files back.
If you have a spare SSD you can put Linux on that. Then you can access the Windows drive from Linux. You might have to install an NTFS driver first, and you will definitely need to configure Windows to shut down properly instead of secretly hibernating, because that leaves the filesystem in a weird state and Linux won’t be able to open it.
If you don’t have a spare SSD you can still do the same trick by shrinking the Windows/NTFS filesystem and installing Linux in the now-free space on the same drive. Among Sysadmins shrinking filesystems has a bad reputation because at least historically it could (rarely) fail and destroy all your data, so I would not recommend you do it but it is possible and in most cases it works without issues.
Each of these comes with some risk - You might forget to copy over important files onto your thumb drive, or you might make a mistake in the Linux installer and accidentally delete Windows when you didn’t mean to. That said you should already have a backup strategy, because your PC could also just spontaneously die and lose the data even if you do nothing. If you have backups and you’ve tested them to know that you really can restore all the files you care about, then even that first option stops looking very scary.