I have been dual booting Windows (WXP, Win 7 and Win10) and Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS and Fedora) since about 2004 and it is rare to run into problems. I have also setup an old white Mac to dual-boot OSX and Linux Mint. I have set up 30-40 computers to dual-boot and I think I have run into problems only once about 13-14 years ago.
Before you set up for dual boot make a Clonezilla backup (image) of your hard drive so that you can restore it easily if things go wrong.
Then after you have set up your computer to dual boot make another Clonezilla backup image of the dual-boot setup.
Then if things go wrong later you can restore the Clonezilla dual-boot setup very easily.
I keep many images of various setups including dual-boot setups. Then if (say) an HDD crashes I can buy a new HDD, install it into my computer as “bare metal”, and restore the Clonezilla image of the dual-boot setup. Then voila! I have a restored and fully-functional dual-boot system in (most times) less than an hour.
I generally try to make a new Clonezilla image of my dual-boot Win7/Linux-Mint system every 6 months or so.
I keep an image of the dual-boot computer as it ran as soon as I set it up for dual boot, then I make and keep images every 6-12 months, going back for about 5 years.
You will be surprised how many complete system images you can keep on a 2TB external drive. I think I have about 20 complete images.
Clonezilla is a fantastic program and it backs up and restores multi-boot systems onto bare-metal hard drives with very little effort. It is a life-saver if things go wrong or if I’m tired and make a mistake.
Clonezilla is an absolutely essential tool. In my opinion everybody who works with partitions and dual-booting had better become proficient with Clonezilla first otherwise you are courting with frustration and/or disaster.
And get GParted too and learn how to use it. It is another essential tool.
Clonezilla and GParted are as essential to computer tinkerers as screwdrivers and wrenches are to auto-mechanics, or multimeters to electricians.
Wholeheartedly agree. With the inexpensive cost of a 256GB SSD or NVMe drive, just install Linux to the new drive and leave selecting which OS to boot from the BIOS menu
I have been using Windows+Ubuntu double-boot system for a number of years, wihout and problems. It can happen though that Windows takes control after a reinstallation. In that case, nothing is lost. There is a Linux utilty you can use on a USB key to choose the OS at startup. You can then start Ubuntu and reset grub from this session.
There are two things that I recommend to do after a dooble boot installation.
1. To avoid having wrong time in Windows, which is important if you use any cloud with synchronization
- Either setup Windows to save and use UTC time, not local time in the BIOS. there is just a key to add to the registry, and a reg file to to that by a simple click). This is my choice.
- Either setup Linux to use local time (a simple command can do this).
2. Mount data windows partition at startup
It is necessary if you want to establish permanent shortcuts to access you windows documents.
You can do that from the Disks application and modify mount options. Mont the partition manually and copy the mount point into the interface at the right place.
If you do not do this and create for example a shortcut to your Windows documents, your shortcut might be broken the next time you start Ubuntu.
All these are very short explanations, if more details are needed, I could add them.