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Right now, I am installing Ubuntu to dual boot on my PC. So, I am at the 'installation type' screen. I have already made a swap, "/", and "/home" partitions (after shrinking the volume of my hard drive). So, now the only field left to fill out is the 'device for boot loader installation' field. I have a boot SSD and a general storage HDD. Where should I tell it to put the boot loader? Thanks!

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  • For a UEFI system, it doesn't matter what you enter, your entry will be ignored. See bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 Grub installs to wrong disk. Do add yourself to the "Does this affect me?" list on the bug. There are workarounds/solutions in the bug comments.
    – ubfan1
    Jan 18, 2023 at 21:56

3 Answers 3

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device for boot loader installation

Pick the ssd. Generally it would be sda.

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  • Just to be clear, that is where my windows is installed. Is that still the right place?
    – Ben Durham
    Jul 23, 2016 at 22:39
  • Did you not create a partition on the ssd for ubuntu? I would have (to install the system (or /) onto the ssd). I would use the hdd only for storage.
    – Rinzwind
    Jul 23, 2016 at 22:42
  • No. I shrank the partition on the HDD because I don't have much space left on the SSD
    – Ben Durham
    Jul 23, 2016 at 22:43
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In my experience, it depends on whether your booting system is of traditional (legacy, BIOS) or UEFI type (in circulation since 2012). Please consider this other answer: https://askubuntu.com/a/860311/446253

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Install the bootloader on the partition where you have the Linux /boot folder. Since you are not using a separate boot partition, I'd install it on the partition where you assigned for root (/).

For EFI system, Ubuntu will add an EFI boot entry in your EFI partition and allow it to load the bootloader install on your root partition. This is the most flexible setup. And Ubuntu can be booted from windows if you hold down shift key when you select the restart from the menu. Don't overwrite tha main disk header if you want to keep windows happy and/or keep using EFI secure boot.

For BIOS system, you will need to use Chain booting. You can chain boot from Windows boot loader for non-EFI system using some tools from EasyBCD, non-commercial use is free I believe. Or you can chain boot from grub. This is when you need to install grub on your main disk MBR header. This may update some windows setup, so I won't recommend this unless you have windows in legacy boot mode.

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