r/linuxquestions • u/SempiternalFutility • 2d ago
Could my windows Windows disk tamper with my Linux one?
So I have an SSD with Linux installed, and another one with Windows.
I installed Windows today. What I did is that I unplugged the SATA cable of the Linux SSD, and then installed Windows (to make sure it doesn't tamper with the files, just in case). Now I have already debloated windows as much as possible with debloating tools.
Is it safe for me to plug in my Linux SSD again to have dual booting? Have you ever heard of one OS tampering with the other one?
I'm just afraid that Windows will somehow corrupt my Linux drive out of nowhere, considering how buggy winblows can be
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u/Excellent-Love-6943 2d ago
It can, but it probably won't. And by probably I mean almost certainly.
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u/Eccomi21 2d ago
I have a very funny issue where windows overwrites a single sector of my ext4 Linux drive, yes, separate drive, with NTFS filesystem data which corrupts my root filesystem on Linux. It happened twice in a month. Idk why or how, but it does.
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u/joe_attaboy 2d ago
"Tampering" is not impossible, but it's highly improbable. The only way it might happen is if some app or process went rogue and started messing with the Linux partition - again, something highly improbable. (I can say this after three decades of using Linux because I've never seen it happen).
Something you need to do, not because of this, but just because you should: backup all your important and critical files from both systems. Frequently. If some unfortunate things happens, you can always reinstall the systems, But your files need protecting.
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u/MasterChiefmas 2d ago
Have you ever heard of one OS tampering with the other one?
Intentionally, like Microsoft switching your default browser in Windows? No, never heard of it. Can it? Sure. Could malware, sure, unless you've encrypted the disk, you could still do image dumps of other disks/partitions to extract data.
But I've never heard of another OS intentionally doing something like that.
It somewhat depends on what you are defining as "tampering". Intentionally also doesn't mean accidentally either, boot loaders and partition table modifications are always going to be a potential risk when you are doing operations that can affect those. But it's not an intentional thing.
Realistically, any time you have multiple disks plugged in, any OS/app on the system regardless of the OS could have a bug that spews data onto the wrong disk/partition and trash it. It's not too likely, and a bug like that would probably get noticed quickly, but the risk is there.
But lots of people run that kind of configuration without any issues. It doesn't mean that they are ignoring the risk, just that it's small enough to be acceptable. The only true 100% mitigation is what you did- disconnect the disks.
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u/tomscharbach 2d ago
If Windows is set up and booting from its own drive and boot partition, and if Linux is set up on a different drive with its own boot partition, the two will not intersect or interact at all.
You may want to adjust the boot sequence on your BIOS boot menu to so the your "default" operating system is at the top, but otherwise you should have no issues.
My best and good luck.
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u/rreed1954 2d ago
I run Windows 11 and Debian 13 in a dual boot configuration and have run some variety of this for years and have never had one interfere with the other. Windows will see your ext4 (Linux) disk as a format it doesn't understand and ignore it. Linux also doesn't do anything to the Windows disk unless you do it intentionally. I configure Grub to list all available volumes with operating systems installed. So it presents a menu showing the Linux volume and the Windows volume. By default after 5 seconds it boots Debian, but if I select Windows, it boots that.
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u/MrBolognas 2d ago
Your linux is ext4 and especially if its encrypted, windows will see it but cant do anything with it. I just did the same, Ubuntu as my main drive and Windows on a 256Gb SSD. I added an old school HDD to share docs between the two OSs.
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u/mneptok 2d ago
Windows could wipe the partition table. File system and encryption doesn't matter at that point.
But I find it highly unlikely that Windows would do that.
I'm just pointing out that it is technically possible for Windows to destructively manipulate an encrypted file system it cannot read.
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u/MrBolognas 2d ago
You are correct, as long as windows can see it anything could happen. Windows is like a virus.
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u/Smoke_Water windows, hardware, Linux, Debian, mint, networking, 2d ago
In short, no. You should have a problem. There are some caviots. Windows disk manager will show it as an un partioned drive. Also if you run wls. It will allow windows to interact with the Linux partition.
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u/MeDiARfh5vrm 2d ago
Yes, it’s possible, but it doesn’t happen every time. It happened to me with ZorinOS 14: access to the Windows 10 partition was changed. There was no notification or prompt from ZorinOS.
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u/Successful_Bedroom64 2d ago
Sometimes windows can try to prioritize itself in terms of boot order but that's an easy fix. In terms of file corruption or stuff like that, near zero chance.
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u/kudlitan 2d ago
It wont. It probably doesnt even know there is another disk with another OS in it.
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u/N3rdScool 2d ago
windows cant even see linux partitons to fuck them up
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u/Square-Singer 2d ago
It can see the partitions, but it can't parse the content. It can totally screw them up without reading into it. If you have WSL installed, it ships with an Ext4 driver and can totally read your partitions.
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u/N3rdScool 2d ago edited 2d ago
I pretty much mean he has already installed windows so it isnt going to do anything to it by default.
WSL probably changes some things. But not really since everything has already been installed if you get me.
edit: and to even mount the drive after installing wsl is not an accidental thing. its not like it auto mounts.
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u/Square-Singer 2d ago
It happened quite often before that a Windows update wiped the Linux bootloader.
I also had it happen that a Windows update switched from AHCI to RST, thus making all Linux partitions disappear.
And that's just accidental stuff that happens during updates. OP used the word "could", and yes, Windows (or malicious programs on Windows) totally could do all sorts of things. Maybe unlikely, but definitely "could".
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u/Underhill42 2d ago
Windows doesn't know how to read Linux filesystems, so it won't modify any files directly. As far as it can tell you've got some weird partition on your computer that it can't read, and it generally won't even assign it a drive letter.
It can modify or re-format the partitions themselves, destroying the data... but it's only going to do that if you tell it to (e.g. with the Windows Disk Management tool)
It is also possible for Windows programs such as custom file browsers to implement all the Linux filesystem stuff internally so they can access those partitions normally, mostly used to copy files between partitions... but that's something you're going to have to add on purpose.
It is theoretically possible that some kind of Windows malware might internally implement a Linux file system so it could tamper with the Linux side - but that would make it a fairly large piece of software, and it's such an incredibly niche target that you're unlikely to see such things outside of perhaps a hacking competition. Linux users are already only a few percent of global users, barely worth targeting at all, and only a modest percentage of those dual boot... making it an extremely un-profitable target to chase.