Windows & Linux Mint Dual Boot, 2 Separate Drives, 2 Methods

Two different use cases/scenarios for installing Linux Mint onto a different Hard Drive (or SSD) than what Windows is installed on.

1. Adding an additional (new) drive to the system or
2. Installing onto an existing Data or second drive Windows is currently using



The Windows Drive is untouched during both these installs, this gives redundancy should any drive fail and options for which system/drive you want to boot first or by default. The second Method starts around the 19:40 mark

The standard ‘install alongside Windows’ that many Linux distro’s offer during install overwrites the Windows MBR and you could be left with an un-bootable computer should something happen to Linux or its drive during or after a typical ‘dual boot’ install. These 2 different ways of installing onto a separate HDD or SSD, leaves the Windows disk unchanged.

Two drives is the way to go for dual booting Linux and Windows, it requires a little more knowledge than the standard ‘install along side’ but comes with rewards. Well worth the small amount of effort to do IMHO.

My system is installed this way and I recently upgraded from Linux Mint 18.1 to Linux Mint 20.1 via a fresh install onto the Linux drive. Nice to know that Windows is unaffected from such an upgrade. The previous systems (Linux & Windows) were installed in 2016, if the drives last for another 5 years I shall be doing this again circa 2025, see you in the future.

As usual back up your data first and do at your own risk.
I did this in a Virtual Environment for the video but the steps are almost identical to how I do this on my own hardware.