[ltp] Dual-boot with Windows 10

[Joerg Bruehe]

Hi!

On 22.04.21 15:11, cr wrote:
> I've just acquired a refurbed E575 with a fresh Win10 install on it,
> which I'm intending to dual-boot with Debian. >
> In the past I've just 'shrunk' Windows and created an extended /sda4
> partition with several logical partitions in it (for OS and data)

How strong is the CPU (how many cores? Hyperthreads?) and how much RAM 
has the machine? Is it a realistic option to run Windows in a VM?

IMHO, the advantages are mostly in the snapshot, backup and recovery 
area. Honestly, I don't trust Windows  there, even though I have to use 
it for some few purposes (especially tax declaration).
In the Microsoft "sysinternals" tools there is a tool "Disk2vhd" which 
will create a vhd file from a running Windows machine, and this vhd file 
can be used as the disk of a virtual machine (VirtualBox or others).

I have gone this route and it works for me (Windows 10 Home as a VM in 
VirtualBox on Kubuntu 18.04 LTS), the only remaining difficulty for me 
is the activation (I want wo avoid a Microsoft account).

In case you want to try that, contact me off-list for further hints.

> 
> However, in this laptop Windows has been a bit greedy thus:
> (according to Gparted):
> /dev/sda1	ntfs	Recovery	499MiB	hidden
> /dev/sda2	fat32			100MiB	boot
> /dev/sda3	Unknown			16MiB	msftres
> /dev/sda4	ntfs			465GiB
> 
> ... so the bulk of Windoze is in /dev/sda4 so I can't create an
> extended partition there without blowing Windows away.   Which I will
> do if I have to, but is there an easy way around this?

I have no info how important the first three partitions are for Windows 
and what would happen in case you remove them. But even if that were 
possible, you would still have to shrink sda4 and either move it to the 
end of the disk (let it remain sda4) or leave it where it starts now and 
rename it sda3.

None of that looks nice and easy to me.


HTH

Jörg Brühe

-- 
Joerg Bruehe  - persoenliche Aeusserung / speaking only for himself
mailto:joerg.bruehe at web.de