Hey everyone! I'm planning to switch from Windows 11 to CachyOS, but I've hit a wall when trying to install it from my USB stick. I can run CachyOS as a live system from the USB without any issues, but when it comes to the actual installation, it only recognizes the USB as the target drive and won't touch my Windows 11 installation or the main SSD at all. I've already disabled secure boot and fast boot. After each attempt to install, my computer just boots back into Windows 11 as if nothing has changed. I'm looking for some advice since I really want CachyOS to run directly on my machine instead of relying on the USB. Any ideas what I might be missing? Thanks in advance for your help!
3 Answers
Absolutely! I agree with that approach. Just specify the entire SSD in the installer and it should work like a charm. Although I personally use MX Linux, the installation process is pretty much the same. If you want to customize things later, consider setting up a separate /home partition for your files.
First off, check your EFI settings and ensure that your SATA disk controller is set to AHCI mode. The installer doesn’t play well with Intel RAID mode due to licensing issues. Just a heads-up, if you're dual-booting with Windows, this change might cause some boot issues for Windows, but there are plenty of tutorials to help you fix that if it happens.
If you're totally ready to ditch Windows, you’ll need to wipe all the partitions on your SSD when you’re about to install CachyOS. You can either do this manually or let the installer handle it. The main thing is, the installer can't modify the Windows partition since it's in use. You could keep the EFI partition for booting CachyOS, but remember to format it to FAT32 and mark it as bootable. Many installers, including Cachy’s, should take care of this automatically.
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