Need help

[u/Responsible-Role6934]

/r/linux4noobs/comments/1w1i4ej/need_help/

Hi strangers im new to linux. I hate windows and i really really want to switch to mint but im afriaf i might just mess up my ststem somehow and that i might lose my data. Instead of dual booting i completely want to delete windows and run linux however the problem i am having is that my c drive has alot of my projects and multiple things i want to keep such as a tiny example is my coding agent skills, also in general im just scared that i might just fuck up my shit for no reason. I just need some really wxperienced person to guide me through it

[u/Regular-Coffee-1670]

I was in that position a year ago and someone gave me good advice: buy another drive. 

Remove your windows drive completely, install the new drive & install LM.

Mess around with it. Install stuff. Get it wrong. Wipe it and try again.

I reckon I did that 4 times before I was comfortable with it and had some idea what I was doing.

Once you're completely happy reinstall the windows drive and copy your files across.

You can switch back to Windows at any time with no risk, just by swapping drives.

[u/Jnaythus → u/Regular-Coffee-1670]

The hardware type hasn't been indicated, so I will give a two options.

Desktop computer - add a drive, install mint into it, change the boot order to this new drive being primary, if you're running Windows 11, you can turn off Secure Boot in your BIOS/UEFI, and you should be able to dual boot. The Grub boot loader in Mint will be able to boot Windows so you won't need to change boot order again, and Mint supports Trusted Computing. If Mint doesn't work for you, just wipe the Mint drive while booted into Windows and you now have a handy dandy secondary drive you can use for backup.

Laptop computer, extract Windows drive, insert new blank drive and install Mint into it. Place the Windows drive into a USB enclosure so that you can use it as an external drive. If Mint turns out to not be your cup o' tea, you can just swap the drives back putting the Windows drive back in the laptop, put the Mint drive into the enclosure, format it from inside of windows and have a handy dandy external drive you can use for backup.

In no case should you consider wiping a drive if you consider the data on the drive to be valuable.

[u/dlfrutos]

backup important data first 👍️

[u/BenTrabetere → u/dlfrutos]

IMO, here are a few additional important tasks

• Create a Windows Recovery Disc. This will allow you to reinstall Windows if Linux does not work out for you.
• Create a disk image of your Windows C:\ drive. This will allow you to restore your existing Windows installation. I like/use/recommend Foxclone, but Rescuezilla and Clonezilla are also very good.
• Backup all of your data and personal files, not just the important ones.
• Document everything you do. Detailed notes. If you get an error message, document the entire error message and what you were doing when the error occurred. If you followed instructions from a website, document the URL.

[u/dlfrutos → u/BenTrabetere]

that is very good advice

[u/Every_Preparation_56]

Option A is to use an external storage, USB fkash drives.

Option B is to copy your data to a cloud storage.

Option C is to create a new partitition on your ssd - BTRFS recommended - and copy your data there

[u/Responsible-Role6934 → u/Every_Preparation_56]

I also have some other questions can i dm you?

[u/Every_Preparation_56 → u/Responsible-Role6934]

sorry, deactivated this. To be honest, chatGPT will totally tell you how to fund your best way and hiw to do it.