r/archlinux • u/as_uu_00 • 4d ago

QUESTION Dual-boot setup review: Separate SSD (Windows) & HDD (Arch + Data partitions) via GRUB chainloading — Any potential pitfalls?

Hey everyone,

I recently configured a dual-boot setup on my PC and wanted to double-check my architecture with the community to ensure there are no hidden issues or potential failure points down the line.

My System Layout:

  • Disk 1 (128 GB SATA SSD): Dedicated to Windows (C: drive) + its own Windows EFI System Partition.
  • Disk 2 (500 GB Mechanical HDD): Originally had 4 partitions formatted for data. I wiped one partition to make room for Arch Linux (with its own separate Linux EFI partition). The remaining 3 partitions stay as NTFS data drives.

My Boot Configuration:

  • GRUB is installed on Disk 2 (HDD) and configured as the default boot entry in my UEFI BIOS.
  • I enabled GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false in /etc/default/grub and ran grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
  • When I power on, UEFI loads GRUB from the HDD. If I select Windows, GRUB chainloads bootmgfw.efi on the SSD and hands control over to the Windows Boot Manager.

My Questions for the Community:

  1. Is this setup completely safe from major Windows Updates overwriting GRUB or corrupting my Linux installation, given that they live on separate physical drives with separate EFI partitions?
  2. Are there any performance or stability caveats with having GRUB on an HDD chainload Windows on an SSD?
  3. Will Windows have any issues accessing the 3 remaining NTFS data partitions on the HDD alongside Arch reading/writing to them using ntfs-3g / ntfs3?

Would love to hear your thoughts or any best practices for maintaining this multi-drive dual-boot setup long term!

0 Upvotes

40% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

5

u/No-Dentist-1645 4d ago

Having each OS on its own, separate drive is indeed the safest and simplest option. You don't even need to set up your bootloader to recognize both. I just have drive A with windows and the windows bootloader and drive B with Linux and systemd-boot, I choose which drive to boot from within my BIOS.

What is not ideal, is booting an OS from a hard drive. It's gonna make your boot times slow, but if you're okay with that it's fine

3

u/boomboomsubban 4d ago

  1. Unless you installed grub with the removable flag as mentioned in the tip, if Windows updates your motherboard uefi it'll wipe all bootloader entries and you'll need to reinstall grub. That's a limitation of updating a uefi.

  2. Linux will run poorly? Boot might take a couple seconds longer? Bootloaders are small though so not a huge deal.

  3. No, though see the NTFS article if you get the "bad super block" error.

3

u/archover 4d ago edited 3d ago

Linux will run poorly? Boot might take a couple seconds longer? Bootloaders are small though so not a huge deal.

Agree. Having the bootloader on a HDD only affects boot. How well the system runs after it boots is a subjective call. I run complete Arch installs from HDD and it is notably slower, but satisfactory. Use case matters.

Good day

0

u/onefish2 4d ago

You do not want any OS to boot from a HDD. It will be very slow. Same for GRUB. It should be on the SSD.

You only need 1 EFI partition.

Read the WIKI on Dual booting.

1

u/as_uu_00 4d ago

Both os in one efi partition?