Hello,
3 years, and I still haven’t managed to install Q-OS the way I want, so … Still haven’t really used it yet
Amongst my struggle in configuration, many got self-solved, I wanted Argon2id which is now native, and I wanted a partition for each (user added) Qubes as I’m Queen a crashing and reinstalling everything, so I want my Qubes to be like /home, (and /tmp, swap) on any good install => Separated so when I reinstall, I keep my /home. Here, I would keep my Qubes.
But someone said that there is a very good backup system which allows to reinstall the entire system, and then re-integrate Qubes as they were (haven’t try it, so I’m still a little reluctant)
Anyway, my question here is about moving Win10 out of my OS NVMe
I have 3 NVMe:
One for OSes
One for Read/Write, /tmp, swap, /usr, the cheapest NVMe of the three for wallet-friendly replacement
One for Data
Do you have any hint, experience, advice as to how to move Win10 to an external stick ? Using HBCD or MediCat toolsets, I moved the 400Gb partition to the stick, but it doesn’t boot, not sure what I did wrong ?
I have my usuals:
FAT 1250Mb /boot,
EXT4 750Mb /boot/efi
NTFS 400Gb System
NTFS 512Gb Data
On a 1To NVMe USB-C (lightning) casing
Otherwise I will just eave it here, and double-boot, or move Qubes-OS boot to a usb stick so they don’t mingle
Do you want to move the full Windows OS to the USB disk to be able to boot from it?
Then you need to clone your EFI System (FAT) partition and your System partition to the USB disk and make sure that their UUIDs are the same as before. So change the partitions UUIDs or change the UUIDs in the Windows system files accordingly.
Thank you, but all that is already in the first post:
I have my usual:
FAT 1250Mb /boot,
EXT4 750Mb /boot/efi
NTFS 400Gb System
NTFS 32Gb /tmp
NTFS 32 swap
NTFS 64Gb Data
On a 512Go NVMe USB-C (lightning) casing
Although I thought about changing the UUID, I didn’t, as IDK how to do it one wind$.
But I’m not even there yet, for now my boot system doesn’t even see my USB as bootable, so it’s not even listed in the F12 options.
Yet, when the system is running (MX23, Win10 native, Suse, …) it sees the drive with all its (see above) partitions
Maybe you’ve disabled boot from USB disks in your BIOS?
Or maybe you’ve set the BIOS option to only boot in Legacy mode without UEFI (but I guess it’s unlikely)?
Could have been this basic, but no, I have my USB as first boot then CD, then SSHD, then NVMe
I frequently boot up from HBCD or MediCat USB stick (or any live-OS)
Bios is UEFi only
It is as if the USB-C enclosure was just not seen at boot, while being seen once booted
Sure !
But same as IDK how to tweak UUID on Win, IDK how to “fdisk” on win …
I type “C:>fdisk” and it says fdisk is not recognized as an internal nor external cmd
But while re-looking at the partition, I see the first one, supposed to be FAT, is actually “healthy, primary” but apparently not formatted
Hi,
After double checking, the partition is indeed FAT, and has exactly the same (folders, files, …) as the original one.
I don’t have Lx on this laptop, I bought it only for Qubes-OS (128GB RAM), but installed Windows on it to remove it from my other laptop which is now Linux-only
While doing the Win10 transfer from one laptop to the other, it worked well-ish, but for some reason it doesn’t while moving it from laptop to USB stick
I’ve tried LazeSoft Win repair, but to no avail
I’m sure I’m missing a “simple” detail, but I just can’t find which
That one came up quickly, but there are also a lot of docs and not a single one recommends booting other OSes on the same machine when Qubes is. I apologize if I misunderstood OP.
Not misunderstood, au contraire highlighting the reason why I want to move Win10 out.
Until I manage to do this (booting win10 from a USB) I’m stuck with a dual boot, which I’ve circumvented by having the two /boot and /boot/efi in separate partitions
I have the regular /boot and /boot/efi (with Suse grub from when Suse was installed) to boot Win10
I have Qubes-OS /boot and /boot/efi on a 2Gb usb stick
So when I want to boot Qubes, I have to plug the USB stick and since my bios is set to boot USB first, it goes straight to it
If I boot the laptop without the USB, it goes straight to the SUSE Grub, which is set to boot Win10 first (Suse no longer installed would boot to fail anyway)
So it’s not a dual boot per-se, but yes, both OSes are on the same NVMe
I have to keep Win10, because Catia (3DS) and Rhinoceros and other heavy applications that runs in this environment only
(Heavy as in: Not runnable through Wine)
I understand, but isn’t a risk Windows boot to poison all the hardware? How you can make Qubes safe attaching the stick to that very hardware? Not to say, USB threats themselves as one the biggest threat to Qubes from within. At least, that’s the reason why I’m putting Windows in a qube. At least, harder to compromise…
This is all off topic, but I genuinely wanted to broaden my understanding.
You are right, but since Win10 would be -obviously- OFF when I run Qubes, not attack possible
And since Win10 is unable to read LUKS Qubes-os partitions, no attack possible
The only cross-attack would be through the common (shared) partitions, the Boot, which is purposedly not shared, not even on the same drive.
The USB would be plugged to boot only, then not mounted to any qubes, not needed anymore after booting.
