Dual boot install

Updated on 23rd July 2020

Configuration of my laptop

Make & brand: Acer Aspire

RAM: 8 GB RAM (it originally comes with 4 GB & I upgraded to 8 GB)

Disk capacity: 240 GB SSD (originally comes with 500 GB of HDD & I upgraded it with 240 GB SSD, resulted in much faster performance)

Processor - Intel® Pentium(R) CPU N3710 @ 1.60GHz × 4, Graphics (in built)

L2 cache – 2 MB

This is touch screen laptop with 11.6 inch size and the screen can be rotated 360 degree.

*All the installations were done with bootable USB

Installing Windows 10

1. Ensure that the laptop is off.

2. Just insert the bootable USB

3. Power on the machine, keep on pressing F12 & the option of selecting the USB drive will come up (depends on configuration of machines)

4. Press Install & select the various entries

5. If the disks are all partitioned then select the appropriate partition for installation. It should be NTFS formatted

6. When prompted with Serial key just press I don’t have key if you are reinstalling else one need to provide it*

6. Windows will install properly

7. It will ask for Microsoft account id and password

Note: The installation requires around 18-20 GB of hard disk so one can make provisions for about 45-50 GB for C drive (where usually Windows is installed).

*One should remember that if you machine comes with pre-installed Windows 10 just link the machine with a Microsoft Account. In subsequent installation, on the same machine, if there is prompt for verification of installation just log in through your Microsoft account details and the machine automatically gets verified. The reason is that the installation is ‘auto verified’ based on device configuration & the associated login with the Microsoft account on that device.

Uninstalling Windows 10

I found several articles about installing but very few about uninstalling. I think it is equally important step.

I found that boot repair utility is wonder if one wants to uninstall Windows or Ubuntu. It helps in auto correction of registry files as well as boot entries.

This place has a good info about how to install and use boot-repair for OS uninstallation - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OS-Uninstaller

Installing Ubuntu 20.04

I am an Ubuntu fan and have been using it regularlly for past 10 years and irregularly for even much longer period. There have been dramatic modifications in this ‘open source’ operating system and it is a must OS for anybody doing even little bit of programming or wanting a ‘safe computer’.

The installation of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has been properly explained in the below mentioned video tutorial (not made by me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vZ-eoH2a4U&list=WL&index=2&t=281s

My additional suggestions:

1. Install Ubuntu on a separate partition and not alongside Windows. The reason being that if due to some update of Windows few files of Ubuntu get corrupted then it may be difficult to bring back Ubuntu.

2. If Ubuntu is installed on a separate partition it is much easier to uninstall it.

Here is a suggested partition scheme:

For a total disk size of 240 GB (for higher one may increase either proportionately or as per his/ her own preference)

Notes:

1. Please note that I do lot of programming hence I chose significant size for root (/) partition for Ubuntu. A normal user can do great even in 2/3 or 1/2 of this size.

2. The reason for choosing /home partition of this size is that now one can install software through snap in Ubuntu. These softwares get installed in /home directory.

3. Try to keep the sequence as mentioned above of partitions. One reason is that in case there is a need to increase the root (/) partition size the data partition can be suitable further divided and the requisite amount can be merged with the root (/) partition. Similar logic is for /home partition. Software like EaseUS partition manager offer merging partition (in premium version).

Uninstallation of Ubuntu 20.04

This is a very important step. I found numerous articles about how to uninstall the Ubuntu (deleting partition then manually correcting the boot entries etc) but using boot-repair utility is the best way. During the course of installation & use of Ubuntu I had to uninstall Ubuntu few times and I found the OS uninstaller utility in boot-repair utility very easy to operate. One just needs to click uninstall and rest of the steps are automatically taken care of.

For using boot-repair one can get good information about here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OS-Uninstaller

Other two good ways to uninstall Ubuntu can be found here:

a) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GRUsnVNLNg

b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od8eUkhCP0Y&list=WL&index=3