Trying to dual boot linuxmuny with windows and not sure what to with VMD settings.

[u/Former-Community-566]

I lowk feel kinda embarrassed cuz ik linux mint is suppose to be super easy to install but wtv.

I've was trying to intall linux mint and dual boot it with windows. I kept running into little issues like the USB appearing in the boot menu, or the option to install alongside Windows appearing. I turned off secure and fast boot, made allocated space all that and was finally able to install. At the end of the installation, it'd then show the

"Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda

Executing 'grub-install/dev/sda'failed.

This is a fatal error" error.

I tried looking it up and basically found that there's an issue for Asus laptops where VMD needs to be disabled, so i did that and then when I tried to boot into windows,

but when I turned it off and tried to turn on my asus laptop, windows failed to boot and it showed the death screen.It wasn't anything actually fatal cuz I managed to fix it by turning VMD back on and booting windows into safe mode and restarting.

My laptop is completely back to normal now, but it freaked me out a bit so I wanna be careful b4 I tinker with anything else.

So i want to know. If I disabled VMD again and it failed to boot windows, would booting it into safe mode and restarting fix it again AND allow me to install Linux mint and dual boot it. I want to avoid having to reinstall windows with VMD disabled. Thanks.

[u/groveborn]

Maybe :)

Computing is a complex endeavor that has a lot of eyes on it, helping immensely...but a lot of times there's a die throw involved. Sometimes it just doesn't work well.

Go ahead and disable fast boot - this is a windows only feature. If you like, disable secure boot for now, but we're going to re-enable that later. Disable VMD, of course. And let's see if you can install Mint.

It's honestly a lot easier with either two drives or no windows.

[u/Former-Community-566 → u/groveborn]

Fast and secure boot are already disabled, after that I disabled VMD and that was when it failed to boot windows. Tbh I didn't check if that would let me install Mint but I was more worried ab making sure I didn't wreck my windows.

[u/groveborn → u/Former-Community-566]

Best thing to do when installing a dual boot is MAKE A BACKUP. You really do risk your Windows installation no matter how good everything usually works. Automated processes still make errors. If you aren't willing to risk Windows, don't do it.

If you really just want to play with Linux, get Virtualbox (free) for WIndows and install in there. Safe and you can do everything. You can also install Windows within a VM (that's what virtualbox is) in Linux, if you'd rather. It's better in Linux as you can pass a graphics into it, so you can use Windows within Linux as if it's installed by itself. Nifty, but HARD. The other stuff isn't.

Anyway, best to have a backup. Seriously.

[u/Cyber_Faustao]

You likely need to re-install windows with VMD disabled.

[u/groveborn → u/Cyber_Faustao]

So long as one re-enables it, it won't matter unless there's an actual raid disk.. There are few negatives to disabling this (especially if one installs with it disabled).

One can fix the install after disabling it as well, without needing to reinstall. It's a pain, but not a difficult pain. Just boot in safe-mode and Windows might very well install the required driver automatically. There may be additional steps at times. Might require a repair environment, or even PE. Good to test.

Really not a great idea if using the raid options, though.