My Dual Boot Experience How I Broke My Laptop

Sourav MahatoSourav Mahato
2 min read

When I bought my first laptop, it came with Windows 11.

It was new, fresh launched. I thought wow, finally my own laptop

But after using it few days… I felt something is off.

Too many pop-ups, background things, unnecessary stuff running.

System was heavy. I just wanted a clean experience, where I can focus and use it properly.

Then I heard about Linux....

No idea how it works.

I was scared what if I break my system. What if I lose everything.

But I was also curious.

I started watching videos online. But most of them were not beginner-friendly.

Slowly, I learned about virtual machine. I tried Ubuntu first.

And I liked it. It was simple, fast, and clean.

Then I thought why not dual boot? Let me use both Windows and Linux together.

First try big mess.

I installed wrong, Windows got corrupted.

BitLocker started asking for recovery keys. I had no idea what that was.

Whole night I didn’t sleep, trying to fix. I thought my laptop is gone.

Somehow I managed to clean install Windows again.

Still, I didn’t give up....

Tried again. Failed again. GRUB issues, bootloader confusion, partitions, secure boot…

I messed up many times.

But every time I broke something, I also learned something.

I understood how Linux file system works, what is GRUB, how bootloader works, how Windows and Linux handle partitions differently.

Over time, I installed many distros Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Red Hat, CentOS.

Sometimes I succeeded, many times I failed.

But I didn’t stop.

I learned to fix things. I learned what not to do.

Now, my laptop runs Windows + Linux dual boot smoothly.

No problem. I know how to install, how to fix if anything breaks.

Looking back, I smile.

Because I really messed up a lot

Everyone says don’t do dual boot, it’s risky.

But I say do it, mess it up, learn from it.

its teaches more than any tutorial.

This whole journey gave me confidence.

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Sourav Mahato
Sourav Mahato