2 ssd/2 OS/1 laptop

Greetings,

I recently installed a second SSD in an optical drive tray, and I am having issues switching from one OS to the other after a restart. The main drive on my laptop is running Windows 10, and the second drive is running Debian 12. The Windows drive only works when I switch to Legacy secure boot off, and the Debian drive only boots if Legacy secure boot is on. I am wondering if there is a way to have them both recognized when booting the system so that it would be possible to select which drive to boot from. Similar to plugging in a flash drive, and choosing to boot from USB. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 15 5555, with Windows 10 Home, and Debian 12, running on two separate SSD. Any assistance would be much appreciated. Thank you very much for your time.

In Debian open a terminal and type

sudo fdisk -l

In the output for both drives look for Disklabel type. It should be either GPT or MBR. Do both drives have the same label, either GPT or MBR, or does one have a label of GPT and the other MBR?

Thank you for the reply. I am not sure what happened, but after a reboot I am no longer able to access the Debian drive. I was not able to follow the above instructions, because of this. Even after changing the option to UEFI Secure Boot: On. The text that appears on the screen is:

>>Checking Media Presence.....

>>Media Present.....

>>Start PXE over IPv4.

When I switch back to Legacy: Secure Boot: Off, I am able to access the drive with Windows installed.

Open a command prompt in Windows and type

diskpart

list disk

Is there an asterisk in the GPT column for any disk listed? You should see both disks but I'm not sure how Windows will see the Debian disk.

Because no drive it GPT they both must be booted Legacy. I don't know why SecureBoot is required to be on for Debian. I can understand why Windows will not boot with SecureBoot turned on.

I would post the question regarding Debaian in the Linux forum requiring Legacy with SecureBoot on and reference this thread in the post

Okay, will do. Thank you for your assistance.

@ beachfeet:-

I've removed the new topic you created last night, and have moved your original topic from the Internal Hardware forum to this one, with a link pointing to the new location. So; anyone who may find it in the Internal Hardware forum will be re-directed here instead.

This way, all replies to this topic have been moved along with it....OK?

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In my experience, the biggest snag with dual-booting Windows and Linux on the same machine - even from separate drives - and attempting to boot both from a common boot Menu, is that Windows will insist on re-writing the bootloader whenever it installs updates. Consequently, you lose access to your Linux install, every time..!

Personally, I would be inclined to try and set-up a "common" boot Menu from the Debian install, NOT from the Windows one......IF this is the route you wish to take. However, there's no guarantee Windows won't go and pull its 'party-piece' again at some point. This is why we normally recommend keeping your Windows & Linux installations completely separate, on different machines.

I run around 12 OSs on one machine, but these are all varieties of 'Puppy' Linux, and consequently the one boot Menu works for all, and they all 'play nice' together. Most Linux distros are perfectly happy sharing disk space & resources with other distros. Windows, however, is like the playground bully.....and wants everything its own way.

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A thought.......which might make things a bit simpler. If your machine is a Dell - and I've always had positive experiences with Dells - you should have a one time boot Menu option at power-on. It might be simpler to just use this to select the drive you wish to boot from. My HP Pavilion desktop rig has something very similar, which I use to boot a couple of other OSs I occasionally run from their own external drives (in this case, HaikuOS and ChromeOS-Flex, one from an external SSD and the other from a 32GB USB 3.0 Gen 2 SanDisk thumb drive).

John's point about the disk format types is well-taken, though I don't know if this would affect matters if trying to boot the way I've just outlined above.....

Mike.

Edited by Mike_Walsh, 17 October 2023 - 02:48 PM.

I may be "lucky" to have an old computer, but I have several boot drives in the same computer, and select the non-default ones from the BIOS.  It's less sparkly and fast, but it works.

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. I was able to get the system working properly. When I first installed Debian on the optical drive SSD, I had removed the main Windows drive before doing so, with hopes of avoiding any confusion. By doing so, I experienced the issues we have been working on for the past few days. I ended up erasing Debian from the second drive, and starting from scratch making sure both drives were in the system at the same time. I was able to boot from an ISO USB and install Debian on the selected second SSD without any issues. Now when booting the system, I can click F12 for boot options, and easily choose to boot from Windows under Legacy options, or Debian under UEFI options. Good to go. Thank you again.

That's weird!  Must be a bios setting to change that, not that you want to now, all is working well.  Though I'd never tried that so I wouldn't know, good job solving it.  I don't like losing speed, and the optical tray is only SATA-II, but if you want to dual boot and not muck up your windows drive that is a good way.

Thanks for the update. Glad you got it sorted out.

@beachfeet :-

Good to hear you're "sorted". Another happy camper!

Onwards & upwards, then.....

Mike.