Will unistalling Elementary Os give me my HDD back?

Discussion in 'Installation' started by BlueStocker, Apr 16, 2017.

  1. BlueStocker

    BlueStocker Thread Starter
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    I mean, if I installed elementary os alongside windows and I want go back to just having windows, Am I going to have problems with my hdd? Is it going to stay in two parts? I really want to try Elementary Os but I'm scared if maybe I don't like and when I uninstall it, it will give me problems.

    (I'm sorry because of my gramatical errors, English is not my first language)
     
  2. Artificial Intelligence

    Artificial Intelligence
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  3. eek

    eek
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    I wanted the same thing. I installed Elementary OS on a USB (3) flash drive and completely bypassed the computer's HDD. There are some tricks to this and if you get it wrong, you can screw your HDD, so I suggest following A.I.'s advice.

    For those who might be crazy enough to do what I did:
    • Use 2 flash drives, one for the installer image, the other as the destination (where you are going to install it).
    • make VERY sure you have the proper device selected for the boot loader AND filesystems (you can manage them separately, so be careful).
    • A high end USB 3 flash drive is almost as fast as an internal HDD but not nearly as fast as an internal SSD.
    In my case, I modified the system bios to boot the USB if it is available and the HDD if not. This has some risks but means I just unplug the USB flash drive to get back to Windows.

    Dual boot (as IA pointed us at) is a much better long-term solution. Using a flash drive is nice for testing and deciding if you want to stick with a particular distribution.
     

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