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Use work laptop as personal device by dual booting on a separate internal drive? (lemmy.one)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by StorageB@lemmy.one to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I currently have a Dell laptop that runs Windows for work. I use an external SSD via the Thunderbolt port to boot Linux allowing me to use the laptop as a personal device on a completely separate drive. All I have to do is F12 at boot, then select boot from USB drive.

However, this laptop is only using 1 of the 2 internal M.2 ports. Can I install Linux on a 2nd M.2 drive? I would want the laptop to normally boot Windows without a trace of the second option unless the drive is specified from the BIOS boot options.

Will this cause any issues with Windows? Will I be messing anything up? For the external drive setup, I installed Linux on a different computer, then transferred the SSD to the external drive. Can I do the same for the M.2 SSD – install Linux on my PC, then transfer that drive to the laptop?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

Edit: Thank you everyone! This was a great discussion with a lot of great and thoughtful responses. I really appreciate the replies and all the valuable information and opinions given here.

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[-] jecht360@lemmy.world 39 points 6 months ago

Exactly. This is a terrible idea. I'm fairly certain that anyone caught doing this would be immediately fired at some companies.

[-] youngGoku@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Yeah... I really don't see the motives to do this either. Possibly:

  1. I guess if you're traveling and you have to bring 2 laptops.

  2. Or you can't afford a PC with the same specs as your work laptop.

Both of those situations don't warrant booting work laptop to external personal HD though.

this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
58 points (79.6% liked)

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