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How to dual-boot Linux Mint 17 and

Windows 8 on a PC with UEFI
firmware
IN MINT, TUTORIALS/TIPS / ON JUNE 11, 2014 AT 1:11 PM /

This tutorial shows how to dual-boot Linux Mint 17 and Windows 8 on a PC with UEFI firmware. The
computer used for the test installation is not an OEM one. Rather, it is a custom-built computer, with an
ASRock motherboard and Intel Core i3 processor.
However, if you follow this guide step-by-step, you should be able to use it to dual-boot Linux Mint 17 and
Windows 8 on any computer with UEFI firmware on a single hard drive.
Note that this applies to the Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon or MATE editions, not the KDE edition, which uses a
slightly different graphical installer. And note also that this guide may also be used to dual-boot Linux Mint
17 and Windows 7 on a computer with UEFI firmware.
An assumption made here is that Windows 8 is already installed on the target hard drive. However, if
necessary, you can always install it afresh. So based on that assumption, here are the steps involved:
1.
2.

Recover space for installing Linux Mint 17 by shrinking the Windows 8 C drive
Install Linux Mint 17 on the recovered space. This assumes that youve already downloaded an
installation image of Linux Mint 17 (MATE or Cinnamon) and burned or transferred it to an appropriate
installation media. If not, download it from here.
3.
Set the default boot manager for the computer
Step 1. Shrink Windows 8s C Drive: Shown in the screenshot below are the existing partitions on the
target hard drive after enough space to install Linux Mint 17 had been recovered. If you dont know how to
shrink a Windows partition, seeHow to resize or shrink a partition or the C drive in Windows 7. The
target hard drive used for this tutorial is 500 GB in size, with about half of that recovered for installing

Linux Mint 17.

Step 2. Install Linux Mint 17: After Step 1 has been completed, time to install Linux Mint 17. Reboot the
computer with the installation media you created in the optical drive or in a USB port. It will boot into the
Live desktop. From there, launch the installer by clicking on its icon on the desktop. When the installer
starts, click until you get to the step shown in this screenshot. This Installation type step shows available
partitioning methods. It will likely inform you that This computer currently has no detected operating
systems. What would you like to do? Select the Something else option, then clickContinue.

That should open the installers Advanced Partitioning Tools window. You should see all the partitions
on the system, including the space that was recovered from Windows 8. That space should be marked as

free space. Make a note of the partition marked as type efi. That takes the place of the traditional /boot
partition. It will come into play at the end of this step.

To start creating partitions, select the free space, then click on the + button directly below it.

That should open the installers partition editor. If you are new to the concept of disk partitions in Linux
and creating partitions in Linux Mint 17, it is highly recommended that you read Guide to disks and disk

partitions in Linux. For each partition that youll create at this step, all you need to modify are the values
for Size, Use as and Mount point. And because a few of the partitions needed were already created
during the installation of Windows 8, only partitions for / (root), /home and Swap will need to be created
for Linux Mint 17 in that order.

For the root partition, a disk space of 20 GB (20,000 MB) should be more than enough. The
recommended minimum for installing Linux Mint 17 is 8.1 GB, so the extra should take care of future
growth in disk usage. For file system (Use as), you may select the default (Ext4). Be sure to select / from
the Mount point menu. OK.

For the /home partition, assign the disk space you think you need and select /home for the mount
point. OK.

For the Swap partition, a size of 4 GB (4000 MB) should be enough. From the Use as menu,
select swap area. OK.

Back to the main partitioning window, you should see all the newly created partitions. Did you notice that
we did not create a boot partition? Thats because on these systems, the EFI partition, which on the
system used for this tutorial is /dev/sda2, serves as the boot partition. Boot files for GRUB will be installed
there. GRUB (the GRand Unified Bootloader) is the boot program used by Linux Mint and virtually all
Linux distributions. Before clicking Install Now, change the entry in the Device for boot loader

installation from /dev/sda to /dev/sda2.

The menu should look like this. Continue with the rest of the installation.

Step 3. Set the Default Boot Manager: After Step 2 has completed successfully, reboot the computer.
Before it reboots into the default boot device, press the F key that will take you to the boot menu. For my
computer, it is the F11 key. This screenshot shows the entries in the boot menu of the computer used for

this tutorial. The AHCI P2: WDC WD5000 entry is for the hard drive used for this installation. The OS
entry for Windows 8 is Windows Boot Manager. Somehow, that of Linux Mint 17 is Ubuntu. If you select
the AHCI P2: WDC WD5000 entry, the computer will not boot. To boot into Linux Mint or Windows 8,
select the matching OS entry.

This very bad image, taken with a digital camera, shows the GRUB menu of Linux Mint 17. From there,
you can boot into the newly installed OS or Windows 8. Once youre satisfied that all works as intended,
you may then make the entry for Linux Mint 17 the default boot device in the computers UEFI setup
utility.