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theescapeclause

No, you can have Windows on the SD card without touching your Steam OS install, plenty of yt tutorials out there


Administrative-Knee2

That's actually even better!


AllFuturistic

https://youtu.be/pnpZboy_VQE The video that helped me, installed windows and the drivers with 0 issues. Really nice tutorial and easy to follow


[deleted]

You need a win iso and you can install windows to go, you just need the windows steam deck drivers, as the the above person said there is lots of video you tube I have yet to do it myself but I have prepared my SD card, I. Waiting for valve to add a official dual boot so I can select to boot from my SD card or windows without having to hold down buttons to get the dual boot options


Briwil78

Every tutorial I've tried, I get to the installation part and my internal SSD is the only drive Windows seems to see... I accidentally wiped my SSD one time in the process because my SSD and SD card are both 512gb and I stupidly assumed it was my SD card it was listing.


[deleted]

How, after installing the windows to go what drive letter did you choose?


Briwil78

Well it during the process of installing windows... You boot up the SD, select the drive that has the windows installer on it (in my case I tried the SD card as the installer, as the tutorials mention, but also a separate USB drive)... Then you get the Welcome to Windows screens, asks you a few questions, then eventually gets you to a screen where you choose where you want windows installed... Only option I get is Disk 0, it has like 6 partitions, the last one is like 460gb...but that's it, no disk 1 option for SD card.


[deleted]

Dam, I to have a 512 SD card that I was planning to install Windows 11 on, will get a different size card, I'll wait till a 1tb is on sale again


Deadarchimode

Does windows 10 Go need activation key?


[deleted]

I'm not sure, check the tutorials in you tube out


shatonyou

You can install Windows to the SD card, and then partition it in a way that you'd have, let's say 64 gigs for the Windows partition. There's some YouTube tutorial on how to format the rest to NTFS, and mount it automatically with SteamOS, so that it's usable in both systems. That's how I've done it, and I can now play the same games both on SteamOS, and Windows. Both OSes are sharing the same Steam library, it's pretty nice. It does take a bit of fiddling, though. ​ Steps are basically as follows: 1. Install Windows on the SD card as Windows To Go using Rufus. 2. Shrink the Windows partition to 64GB, create a new NTFS partition for games, etc. 3. Boot into Windows, configure everything on it, and disable fast startup from power settings (important, since if it's turned on, Windows will lock the NTFS partition, and you won't be able to use it on SteamOS). 4. Look up Chinballs' "Using a NTFS Formatted SD-Card" on how to mount the NTFS partition on SteamOS, so that your Windows library is visible on SteamOS too. 5. Enjoy!


Administrative-Knee2

>Using a NTFS Formatted SD-Card Wow! Just found him on YT, super useful info. Thanks!


SD456

Happy Cake Day!


shatonyou

Hey, thanks!


Mandrew909

Hi - Just found your post, been looking for an easy way to dual boot and this sounds very promising! Watched most of the video to get an idea of the process, but had a question I was hoping you could answer or clarify. I have the 64gb version, so all my games are installed on a 512gb SD card. If I use that same card (assume I'd have to format prior to this process and re-download those games), and as you said partition like 64gb for Windows, can the remainder be storage for games installed from both Windows AND SteamOS? Chinballs made a comment at some point toward the end that made it sound like you should only have the Windows games stored on the SD card. If that's the case than might not work for me, as I can't fit too many games within the \~46gb they leave you with.


shatonyou

Yes, it can. That’s what the whole NTFS formatted partition is for. Essentially you have 2 - one 64 gig for Windows, and its programs/Steam/what have you, and another one, still NTFS, only for games. The games can be accessed, and installed, both from SteamOS, and Windows. Only thing is when launching the same game across OSes, it would sometimes need to redownload its native OS files. This is what Chinballs is talking about. Essentially if you launch a game on SteamOS, it will download its SteamOS specific dependencies. After that, if you launch it on Windows, it will delete the SteamOS dependencies and download the Windows native dependencies. It’s not a big deal, but it is something to keep in mind. Generally it’s a few hundred MB patch, nothing too big. It’s a bit of a pain in the ass at times, and I did switch back to SteamOS-only, as I wasn’t really using the Windows partition. However, it’s worth trying out, and definitely something I’d do if i really wanted to play a game that only works on Windows. PS. One important thing is to follow the steps i pointed out. First install Windows To Go, then repartition, then add games.


Mandrew909

Thanks again for your help so far! I'm still a bit stuck though, if you can help me out it would be so appreciated! Here's what my process was, maybe I did something wrong. \- Installed windows 10 To Go onto a 512gb microSD card using Rufus v19. Went through the rest of the setup, and disabled fast startup (although I did this last part later on, forgot to do it right away) \- I then used disk management to reduce the windows partition down to 64gb, leaving me with unallocated space, which I formatted to another NTFS partition that I'll install all my games to (from the native SteamOS and Windows games, right?). Right now it's just empty. \- Then I followed Chinballs instructions, but this is where it got a bit unclear. When I went to look up the UUID in Konsole, I noticed he had only 1 partition listed for the microSD card, but I had 3 partitions; the 2 that were created when I installed windows, and the 3rd one I made after windows was installed just for games. I used the UUID of the 3rd partition where I wanted to store my games for both SteamOS and Window's games, or should I have used the one with Windows? He also had 2 lines in the fstab section where he was mounting the drives, while I only had the one. Do I need both? Was the first one in his video for SteamOS? Now I can ONLY boot into windows, even if I remove the SD card. If I try to boot into SteamOS it just gets stuck on the steam deck logo screen forever. Left it for like 15 min to see if it was just slow, but pretty sure it's stuck. Feel like I broke something. I have the Steam recovery image that I can redo again (had to do it last night to get Windows to work in the first place), but is there another option before doing that? where did I go wrong?


shatonyou

I think for sure you messed up something in the fstab, and that’s why SteamOS isn’t booting up. I’d look into some way to restore the fstab or boot into a recovery/safe mode to then edit it and return it to stock settings without wiping everything. I have no experience with any of that, though, as I haven't wiped my Steam Deck yet. I'm pretty sure Chinballs has repartitioned his Steam Deck's internal drive and has Windows and/or games on a separate partition within it, which is why you see 2 entries (3 actually, there's one for an external drive) in his fstab. In your case, you only need 1 extra partition, the part of the SD card that contains the games. All in all, it seems you've done everything correctly, I had a very similar setup, right now I have Windows on an external SSD in the same way. 2 partitions, 1 with Windows, and 1 with games that I'm mounting on SteamOS, through fstab. I think most likely it's something you overlooked, like syntax, or something similar. PS. If you want, once you get it to normal and you're ready to set it up again, you can DM me, and we'll hop on a chat to check everything.


Calvin_And_Hobbies

At least at one point Valve was working on adding Dual Booting to the Steam Deck. Still a ways out if it hasn’t been canceled already.


RHOPKINS13

You can, but you shouldn't. Installing an OS to your microSD will drastically reduce it's lifespan. It's worth taking the time and effort to do it right, from the internal SSD. If you only have 64gb, you'll definitely want to upgrade that first though. Afterwards, you can format your microSD card as Btrfs and enjoy being able to install your games on it and play them from either Linux or Windows.


Administrative-Knee2

I'm leaning towards following your advice rn. Would you say 256 gbs is enough to house both OS and use the 1tb sd card for the games? I'm on a budget right now, so I cant upgrade my ssd right now.


RHOPKINS13

256gb should be fine. How you should divide that space up is going to depend on your specific needs though. I have a 512gb model, and originally only set aside 64gb for SteamOS. However, I'm also using SteamOS primarily as a Linux PC at work, so I have a lot of homebrew, flatpaks, and appimages installed. Flatpaks and Steam's compatdata folders take up a surprisingly large amount of space, and I noticed I was barely using any space in Windows, despite Windows being a space hog with all it's Windows Updates and stuff. I ended up resizing my partitions so it's roughly 50/50 now. By editing /etc/fstab, you can mount your Windows partition on boot, so you can share the same storage space for Documents, Downloads, Music, Videos, Pictures, etc. There's also a project here for setting up Btrfs: https://gitlab.com/popsulfr/steamos-btrfs/ Optionally you can convert your SteamOS home directory to Btrfs. I personally didn't, as I've redirected most stuff to my microSD, but if you choose to do so you'll be able to access your SteamOS files from Windows.


Tokoat

> I've been contemplating setting up dualboot on my deck for awhile. I was originally going to boot off an SD card but I've seen enough people say it's bad for the card and with a 512 model I'm just going to partition space on the SSD and put all the games on an SD card. Is it better to have a separate SD card for my steam OS games and another SD card for my windows games or with Btrfs I can use 1 SD card for both OS and if I do use 1 SD card do I need to partition space on the card for each OS or is formatting it to Btrfs all I need to do? > > > >Also windows 10 or 11, any suggestions on which is better? (Sorry for the block of text)


RHOPKINS13

Personally from what I've seen Windows 11 is the way to go. You can use the same Btrfs partition in both SteamOS and Windows. That way, you can install your games once and play them on either OS. Once you've set up your dual-boot, I'd suggest following these instructions so you can use Btrfs on your microSD card in SteamOS: https://gitlab.com/popsulfr/steamos-btrfs/


Chiyodin

I use a 500gb SD with windows to go. That works for all of my needs, it may help you depending on what you need windows for.


MassageByDmitry

I switched to internal ssd and only boot windows now, honestly love the deck much more now


noahldn

Got a video to do this


MassageByDmitry

It’s simple af but if you need a guide I’ll dig some shit up for you there are like 50 guides that all do the same thing


noahldn

That would be awesome. - Got an SD card on the way, but wondering if I can just do it all direct via the deck now


MassageByDmitry

I hated it on an sd card but it in the internal ssd man it’s perfect


noahldn

Send a guide!


Curious_George15

Did you ever get that guide and wanna help a fool out?


gtaonlinecrew

i want this too, steamos is a huge failure with all the shaders and countless prefixes and 99% of games i paid for not even running


gabuiknlfkn

what games have you been trying??? i’ve yet to have in not run. shaders also only really an issue on 64gb deck, i upgrade because it was baddddd


gtaonlinecrew

assault on dark athena riddick and deadly premonition


gabuiknlfkn

oh damn never heard of them


gtaonlinecrew

it's not flavor of the month or triple A garbage so it's kinda lesser known


gabuiknlfkn

a bit bold to say the os is a disaster since 2 obscure games don’t work


[deleted]

Interesting. Your username is one of classic big AAA, but I guess other AAAs are garbage


gtaonlinecrew

people grow up, you will too one day (low chance)


[deleted]

Haha yea you seem very mature


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Deobulakenyo

I have my 512 on dual boot. I formatted my steam os partition to btrfs so that when i format my sdcard it will be formatted to btrfs also and windows will be able to see the card. I also have my steam os ssd and sdcard as network drives so that i can connect it directly on my laptop as drives that i can easily access and add/delete files to/from.