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I recently installed a new SSD into my PC and downloaded Windows 11 into the new disk. I originally left the old OS on the old disk in order to make sure I didn't delete anything I might need but at this point I am pretty sure I have everything. I am now looking to format the partition. In the screenshot provided it shows Disk 0 (unrelated HDD), Disk 1 which is the original disk with the old version of Windows on it, and Disk 2 which is the new SSD with the new Windows install.

My confusion comes from the partitions on Disk 1. Disk 2 (the new one) shows only one partition labelled "Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Basic Data Partition)" whereas Disk 1 has 3 partitions "Healthy(EFI System Partition)", "Healthy (Basic Data Partition)", "Healthy (Recovery Partition)".

I would quite like to have Disk 1 to house Linux and it seems odd to leave parts of Windows on that disk if Disk 2 is where the rest of my OS is. Is there some way to move these partitions to Disk 2 or generate them again or am I misunderstanding what they do.

Sorry I haven't done a good job of explaining myself. Let me know if there is any confusion and I will try and explain better.

disk management screenshot disk management screenshot

Toto
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SuitYourself
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1 Answers1

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To test this answer, I first installed Windows 10 on one drive, then installed Windows 11 on a different drive. The created a Windows 10 and Windows 11 dual boot. The steps to replace Windows 10 with Linux are given below.

  1. Install Windows 11 boot files on drive containing Windows 11.

    Boot to Windows 11. Open an Administrator Command Prompt window. Enter the command given below.

    diskpart

    This command is interactive. Enter what is shown below. Basically, you are adding an EFI partition to the drive containing Windows 11. Here, I assume this drive already has a Microsoft Reserved partition.

    select volume c:
shrink desired=300
create partition efi
format fs=fat32 label=EFI quick
assign letter=s
exit

    Next, enter the command below to install Windows 11 boot files on the volume stored in the new EFI partition.

    bcdboot c:\windows /s s: /f uefi

    You can close the Administrator Command Prompt window and restart the computer.

  2. Enable Windows Recovery Environment

    This step is optional. I found my Windows Recovery Environment (WRE) was not enabled. This step corrected this problem. You can see if your WRE is enabled by entering the following command.

    reagentc /info

    To enable, I opened an Administrator Command Prompt window and entered the command given below.

    reagentc /setreimage /path c:\recovery\windowsre /enable

    You can close the Administrator Command Prompt window and shutdown the computer.

  3. Install Linux on the drive containing Windows 10. I chose to install Ubuntu Desktop 24.04.1 LTS. When asked, I chose to erase the disk, as shown below.

  4. After installing Linux, I needed to manually edit the firmware settings to make Ubuntu first in the boot order. I was able to choose between Windows and Ubuntu from the Grub menu, as shown below.

References

David Anderson
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