I want to move to Linux Mint without losing data, can someone help?
The best option is to get a new hard drive. You can find one for $100.
Then just connect your old drive to the PC with a USB to SATA adapter and copy any files you need.
With the extra drive there is no risk to your data from the install as long as you DON’T CONNECT THE OLD DRIVE DURING THE INSTALL PROCESS, since you could conceivably choose the wrong install disk. If it’s not plugged in then you can’t choose it
You can find one for $100.
You can get them substantially cheaper than that! but your point holds. A USB stick is also rather cheap - you can get a 128GB SANDisk jobbie for £10 a pop on Amazon.
I second this, second disk is best as you can keep your old Windows drive in case you ever need to go back for any reason. Modern UEFI makes dual booting way easier than it used to be as the UEFI itself provides a boot menu so you don’t need to fiddle with dual booting using a bootloader like GRUB.
If you have 1 backup, you have no backups; If you have two backups you have one backup.
Just make a backup of your data, it’s the easiest way. Can it be done without a backup? Yes, but it’s complicated and error prone. Better go the safe route.
Better go the safe route.
Yea but that’s boring, it’s more fun to YOLO it! Shrink the windows partition from Linux, create the new Linux partition and install, then move everything over from the NTFS partition to Linux, delete it then expand the Linux partition.
Ez-Pz and the added pressure makes it more fun! Lol
Sorry but downvoted. If you delete your thesis or your family photos while trying to install Linux w/o backup, there is no turning back.
Just send it mate
Back up your data before hand.
You can use gparted on your mint live session to resize the windows partition to minimal size, leaving the biggest empty space possible. Leave 500mo to the windows partition as a safety net.
Then during the install process :
- choose manual install (not install on a full drive),
- create an ext4 partition for the system (30 to 50 go) with a “/” mount point. It’s the system partition.
- create a “swap” partition (size = your computer ram x 2). It’s the physical memory partition.
- last create an ext4 partition (all remaining space) with a “/home” mount point. It’s the personal data partition.
Once the install completed you will be able to access your windows data from mint.
How much and what data are you looking to keep?
Someone suggested getting a new disk drive/SSD, which is a good approach if you don’t mind a relatively hard cutover. But if you have the space and funds for it, it may be simpler to just get another computer and run Linux on it from the beginning, while also keeping your Windows machine running. Then you can gradually migrate your files and activities to Linux as you go. Once you’re not using the Windows machine much any more, just unplug it, don’t throw it out. You can then turn it back on if you need something from it.
Best way to not lose data is to never delete it. Buying a new hard drive can definitely do that but backing up everything you want is completely fine too.
If you don’t want to lose data you have to keep it somewhere. Current hard drive is a good choice.
Heed the backup data warning.
But if you just want to test mint to see how it feels, you can boot from a USB and install mint on a second usb. That way you are less prone to lose any data should something happen.
Make sure that the second USB is somewhat recent and has minimum 32 Gb for an optimal experience.
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- Make a backup. Use the windows backup utility for this, it’s real good. After that, look at what it backed up and make sure it didn’t miss anything.
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- Plan out what you wanna do. There’s a lot of posts in reply to this thread that suggest different ways of doing things. If you plan what you want and investigate how to do it you will fail less.
What do you wanna do?
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Your personal files? Back them up onto an external drive in Windows and then copy them into your home directory after installing Linux.
If it’s app data also copy it into an external drive and import it into the apps after installing them on Linux. Depending on the app they may have cloud sync options you can use too.
Step 1: “Unlearn” everything you learnt about technology and pcs as a whole and embrace Linux with a open mind.
Step 2: Kill the bad habit (that only Windows gives you) of expect everything to “just werk” and to “solve” all your problems with left clicks. Yes, that is a bad, terrible habit and should not be accepted/be a daily habit for you and no sane user out there.
Step 3: Nah, you’ll lose everything – just YOLO it.
