26

I'm finally planning to shift my primary PC to Linux in the coming week. I want to ensure all of my data from Windows be transferred to Linux, including my personal files and application data, even if there is no native support in Linux to access it.

For context, my setup has become untidy over the years; I have two partitions :C & :D and stored personal data in each partition, plus I have created directories of my own in several odd locations which I cannot recall but they also contain some critical files. I only have a single NVMe SSD installed that is almost out of space so I cannot dualboot, although I can make use of an external HDD during the transfer. I've already had some experience in Linux by installing it in another PC immediately after purchasing it.

Is there some way to automatically prepare all my data in Windows for transfer into Linux directly or in a backup drive accessible in Linux? Please don't tell me I have to copy and paste all files by hand because given the criticality of the stored data I would rather stay in Windows than risking data loss.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I would personally buy a new ssd for Linux, and keep the original windows drive somewhere else for safe keeping. That's what I did when I migrated

you can transfer the entire ssd content including files, partitions, boot stuff to another disk (e.g. your hdd) as long as that hdd is bigger than or the same size as your ssd. have a look at clonezilla for this. You can then read this hard drive's contents from the new Linux install to copy over files you want.

this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2025
26 points (93.3% liked)

Linux

57274 readers
253 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS