I'm replacing most of my PC hardware and installing Ubuntu on a fresh boot drive. I'd like to keep the files on my existing drives rather than erase everything and copy it all manually. They're formatted as NTFS, so can I simply connect them after Ubuntu is installed and access the data normally? Are there any Windows shutdown or drive-preparation steps I should take first? I'd also appreciate general advice for someone moving from Windows to Linux, including how to handle backups, applications, updates, and game saves.
4 Answers
If you want to preserve the Windows installation temporarily, you can shrink its partition from Windows and keep personal data on a separate partition or drive. That gives you a fallback while learning Ubuntu. Either way, have another backup—an external drive or cloud copy—because a second internal drive is not a backup if the whole computer is damaged or lost.
For getting started, install software through Ubuntu’s normal package tools whenever possible. If an application isn’t available there, Flatpak can be another option, with Snap also being reasonable for many beginner-friendly installs. Keep the system updated, avoid running everything as administrator, and be cautious with random third-party repositories. NTFS is fine for exchanging files, but native Linux filesystems are usually a better choice for the Ubuntu system itself and demanding workloads such as games.
A safe approach is to gather your important documents, photos, game saves, and other data into clearly labeled folders, then copy them to the new system. Don’t erase the old drive until you’ve opened several files and confirmed the transfer worked. If you plan to keep the old drive connected, you can use it for storage, but consider eventually moving frequently used Linux data to a Linux-native filesystem for better compatibility and performance.
Linux can read and write NTFS drives, so you should generally be able to connect them and access your files. Before removing them from the Windows system, shut Windows down completely rather than leaving fast startup or hibernation enabled; otherwise Linux may treat the filesystem as unsafe or mount it read-only. Keep a separate backup of anything important before changing partitions or wiping the old boot drive.
That makes sense. I’ll keep a separate backup and make sure Windows is fully shut down before connecting the drives, then I’ll wait to wipe anything until I’ve verified the files.