I just installed Linux Mint with XFCE on an SSD in my old laptop, but it keeps bypassing it and booting straight into Windows. The installation went fine, and I put the bootloader on the SSD. I've checked the BIOS settings and changed the boot order, but it still doesn't work. I even swapped the SSD into the main drive bay and placed the HDD in the optical drive slot, but it still boots into Windows. The grub menu only shows up when I completely remove the hard drive. What can I do to keep both drives in the laptop while ensuring it boots from the SSD?
3 Answers
It sounds like your BIOS isn't prioritizing the right drive to boot from. You might want to double-check those settings again to make sure it's set correctly!
Are you planning to use Windows regularly, or is Mint your main focus now?
Have you created an EFI boot partition on each drive, or are they sharing the one on the Windows drive? That could be the issue!
This laptop is quite old, so it probably doesn’t have EFI support. I installed the bootloader directly on the new drive instead.
Not really, I’d prefer to use Mint, but I want to keep the old HDD connected for safety.