How to Dual Boot Windows 10 and Linux Starting with Windows or Linux

A computer that boots both Windows 10 and Linux can easily be the best of both worlds. Having easy access to either of the operating systems lets you enjoy the benefits of both. You can hone your Linux skills and enjoy the free software only available for Linux platforms. Or, you can switch back to Windows 10 to use apps like Photoshop, AutoCAD or Microsoft Office. The beauty of dual booting is that it lets each operating system take full advantage of the hardware resources of your computer. While virtual machines and the Windows Subsystem for Linux can give you a taste of the Linux experience, dual booting lets you tap its full potential.

The good news is that Windows 10 and Linux live in harmony better than ever these days. Dual booting Windows 10 and Linux used to be a precarious process that could wreck your Windows installation, your Linux installation or both. While the process isn’t quite a smooth as dual booting macOS and Windows with Boot Camp, it comes close. In this article, we’ll show you how to safely install Windows 10 and Linux on the same hard drive. It doesn’t matter if you’re starting with Linux or starting with Windows—dual booting is easy to set up either way.

Dual Boot Linux with Windows 10 – Linux Installed First

Let’s start with the (slightly) harder way first; you already have a copy Linux installed and you want to install Windows on a partition. The first step is to create the partition where Windows 10 will be installed. We have covered how to create partitions in Linux, so, start by reviewing our article on how to do that.

Once you have your partition set up, you will need to purchase Windows 10, download the ISO file then create a bootable copy. Creating a bootable copy of Windows 10 on Linux can be done using the free Unetbootin (USB thumb drive) or Brasero software if you are installing from a DVD.

Create Bootable Windows 10 Install Media Using Unetbootin

Unetbootin can be downloaded from the Software Center in Ubuntu. Once you have it up and running, launch it. Make sure you are using a thumb drive with at least 8 GBs of free space.

Select the Disk Image radio box, click the browse button (represented by an ellipsis …), browse to the ISO file then click Open. Chose the medium from the Type list box—in this case, your USB drive. Click on the drive list box then select your USB thumb drive.

Click OK, then wait while the bootable copy is created.

When complete, click Exit.

Create Bootable Windows 10 Install Media Using Brasero

If you already made a bootable USB with Unetbootin, you can skip this part. If you are still using an old school system with a DVD drive, you can use the Brasero DVD Burning software, which you can download from the Software Center also. Please keep in mind, Windows 10 ISO files are getting larger beyond the standard 4.7 GB DVDs. So, in some cases, it’s best you use 8.5 GB dual-layer DVDs if supported by your drive. If you can’t, then it’s best you use a USB thumb drive.

In Brasero, click Burn Image.

Select your disc image, make sure a blank DVD disc is inserted then click Burn.

After preparing your install media, insert it or connect it. Reboot your computer, then configure your BIOS to boot from the drive. Windows 10 will boot into setup as it normally does. After you arrive at the setup screen, click Custom: Install Windows only (advanced).

Make sure you select the right partition; don’t wipe out your Linux installation. Click Next then wait while Windows 10 Setup copies files to the drive. Your computer will be rebooted several times.

When setup is complete, follow the instructions to complete the out of box experience.

After that’s complete, you might notice the obvious—there is no way to boot into Linux anymore. Here is how you fix that. Download a free utility called EasyBCD from Neosmart Technologies. Proceed to install EasyBCD then launch it. Select the Linux/BSD tab. Click in the type list box, select Ubuntu; enter the name of the Linux distribution, choose automatically locate and load then click Add Entry. Reboot your computer.

You will now see a boot entry for Linux on the Windows graphical boot manager.

Dual Boot Linux with Windows 10 – Windows Installed First

For many users, Windows 10 installed first will be the likely configuration. In fact, this is the ideal way to dual boot Windows and Linux. Again, I will be using the Ubuntu Linux distribution. You can download the Ubuntu Linux ISO image from Canonical’s web page then create a bootable copy using Unetbootin for Windows or burn to a blank DVD using disc image in Windows 10.

After creating your install media, configure your BIOS to boot from it. Ubuntu’s installation wizard intelligently detects existing Windows installations. It will ask you if you would like to install Ubuntu alongside Windows.

At the Ubuntu install screen, click Install Ubuntu.

Choose whether you want to download and install updates and third-party drivers and codecs then click Continue.

Select the option Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10 then click Continue.

Ubuntu’s installer will set a default allocation of space for the installation. If you have enough space, you can resize the partition by placing your mouse between the divider then drag it left or right to make adjustments. Once you are satisfied with the allocated amount for your Ubuntu installation, click Install Now.

Click Continue to confirm changes.

Click Continue again.

Enter your time zone then click Continue.

Select your keyboard layout, click Continue.

Create your user account by providing your full name, computer name, login name, and password. Choose whether you want to log in automatically or be prompted for a password. You can also encrypt your home folder for extra security. Click Continue.

Wait while Ubuntu copies files.

When complete, click Restart Now.

Ubuntu will add a boot entry for Windows 10 to the GRUB boot manager, which you can select using the up or down arrow then hitting Enter.

That’s it, Windows 10 and Ubuntu is now set up on your computer.

Let us know what you think. If you have done this before, share some of your tips with us. By the way, what’s your favorite distro?

Can’t boot windows after linux install

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From your booted Linux system, use the following command in a terminal:

This should detect Windows 8.1 and add it or fix it.

If nothing happens, boot from the Windows 8.1 CD and go to recovery console:

As you are in the recovery mode, use Windows 8.1 fix boot errors tool. (Forgot the exact name of the tool) and reboot.

Now you would have Windows but not Linux.

Try reinstalling Linux — put MBR partition into sda (as opposed to sdb like before) or try sudo update-grub from the live CD.

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How to boot back into Linux after Windows 10 install

Preface

On this computer I had Windows 7 installed. I accidentally broke it, so I installed Linux Mint (since Linux is free and I didn’t want to pay for Windows). Recently I was able to install Windows 10 on the partition that previously contained my broken Windows 7 (I looked at all the files and decided that I had them (or equivalent) stored in other places).

Problem

Now this is where my problem comes in. Once I installed Windows 10, it boots up fine. the only problem is that the installation seems to have broken (possibly overwritten) the GRUB2 bootloader, and now I can’t boot into Linux.

I’ve looked at many Q&As here on SuperUser, but none of them worked.
(so please don’t mark this as a duplicate unless I say it works in my situation! Thank you)

Possible Solution #1

There was one that got pretty close to solving my problem. It was having me use EasyBCD to add Linux to the bootloader, but I didn’t know where the boot files are stored in a Linux system.
I don’t know how others are, but I have three partitions, one for the filesystem (which this is where I suspected the boot files to be, but it didn’t work), one for /home (I was going to select this one next, but I wanted to ask this question, before I messed anything up anymore. ), and one for the swap (I know the boot files are in this partition).

Possible Solution #2

One was talking about installing Linux and then using some BCD software to add it to the bootloader, would this work in my situation? When Linux is already installed?

Final thoughts

For anyone who answers my question just know that I don’t care if I have the GRUB2 bootloader or a Windows bootloader (or one that looks like a Windows bootloader). I just want to be able to boot into both Linux and Windows when I want (since I’ve found that there are big pros to both)

Can’t boot to windows after installing Ubuntu in UEFI

I’m trying to install an Ubuntu dual boot on my windows 10 laptop. Windows 10 used the legacy BIOS setting.

When I start the Ubuntu installation I get a warning about BIOS and UEFI, other operating systems becoming unbootable, only proceed if sure, etc. But since no alternative is offered (other than simply giving up and not installing Linux) I decided to proceed, and found that after install, GRUB only offered a Linux option.

Is there a way for me to boot from Windows again? I don’t mind to uninstall ubuntu

2 Answers 2

Depending on exactly what the warnings said, and what exact choices you made when installing Ubuntu, the installation process may have done one of a few things:

It may have converted the partitioning from MBR to GPT style to install UEFI-style, keeping (or resizing) the existing partitions. This is the best option: you’ll just need to install a UEFI-style bootloader and you can then get back to Windows. Once the Windows UEFI bootloader is on the disk, Ubuntu might even detect it automatically the next time you run sudo update-grub and add it to the GRUB boot menu for you.

It may have just set up a UEFI-style bootloader on a MBR-partitioned disk. This is a problem, since while Linux can do this, Microsoft says Windows won’t support this combination. However, returning to legacy-style Windows-only boot should be fairly easily doable in this case.

It may have taken the entire disk for Ubuntu, so your Windows installation was overwritten and no longer exists. This is the worst-case scenario: if you want Windows back, you’ll need to fully reinstall it and your existing Windows files will be gone.

Identifying your situation

In Linux, run sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda . If your system disk is something other than /dev/sda , replace that with the appropriate device name. For example, on a new system with a NVMe SSD, it might be /dev/nvme0n1 instead.

The output should look similar to this:

If your version of Linux fdisk isn’t too old, the output should include a line that says either

This identifies the partitioning style that is currently in use on your system disk.

GPT-partitioned system disk — installing a Windows UEFI bootloader

Since the Linux installer has set up a UEFI bootloader for us, there should also be an EFI system partition (ESP for short) on the disk. In the fdisk -l output, it is the partition that has its Type listed as EFI System and its size would typically be something in between 100M and 512M. In Linux, it might be mounted at /boot/efi . You might want to run sudo ls -l /boot/efi or take a peek at it with some GUI file manager so that you’ll recognize the contents of this partition — you’ll be seeing it at Windows command prompt for a bit. Typically, if ESP is mounted at /boot/efi , there should be a sub-directory like /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu that contains the actual UEFI bootloader of Ubuntu.

Now, get yourself a Windows 10 installation media. You won’t need the license code. Boot your computer from that installation media. Since your Ubuntu installed in UEFI mode, your computer will probably boot the Windows installer in UEFI mode automatically too, but in case you see two boot options for the installation media, only one of those options boots it in UEFI mode, and that’s the one you should pick. (Hopefully the boot menu will say which is which — it depends on your system’s UEFI firmware.)

When the Windows installer displays the initial screen with an «Install now» button in the middle of the screen, select instead «Repair your computer» near the bottom.

From the next menu, choose «Troubleshoot» and then «Command Prompt».

Now, type in these commands:

This should display a list of partitions. Find the partition that has FAT32 in the «Fs» column — it should be your ESP you saw in Linux before. Note its volume number ( Volume ### in the leftmost column) and assign an unused drive letter (like X:) for it. For example, if ESP is listed as Volume 2 :

It should say DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point. at this time. Then type exit to quit the DiskPart utility.

Switch to the EFI directory on the ESP:

If you see the ubuntu directory, you’re in the right place.

Now create a directory or two for the Windows UEFI bootloader:

Install the Windows UEFI bootloader to the ESP and re-create the Windows BCD registry:

If you want the Windows bootloader to use a language other than English, replace en-us in the command above with the appropriate Windows language code.

Now type exit , remove the Windows installation media and reboot your system. It should come up in Ubuntu just as before. Run sudo update-grub to update the GRUB boot menu. If all goes well, it should now auto-detect the presence of UEFI Windows bootloader and add it to the GRUB boot menu.

Also now in the BIOS boot order menu, there should be a item named «Windows Boot Manager». If you want to remove Ubuntu and go back to Windows-only system, just switch this one as the primary boot option, and the system should skip GRUB and boot into Windows by default. Then you can remove the Linux partitions using Windows Disk Management. Do not remove the EFI System partition, as now Windows also needs it for booting.

(Work in progress — I’ll add the MBR restoration option later)