Building a desktop and dual booting

For the first time (finally) I’m in the process of buying parts to build myself a desktop (I’ve been on laptops only for what seems like forever).

As I plan to dual boot Zorin and Windows (sadly I’m still reliant on Windows for certain programs), would I be better to partition a single HD, or go with seperate HDs for each OS?

Knowing what Windows can be like with dual booting (especially after those forced updates) is what has my mind in a quandry. My brain tells me the two drives would be better, but I’m sure there are far more experienced minds on here that can give a definitive answer, or point out any issues either way.

Congratulations. I prefer desktops, although lately I’ve been using an old laptop since it got new life from Zorin. If you haven’t already, I recommend visiting https://www.tomshardware.com/ for build info and https://pcpartpicker.com/ for buying the parts.

I have dual boot on my desktop with separate drives, and that is what I recommend. Before you do any installation, please read: USB boot install even if you don’t intend to use a USB to install. For partitioning, I recommend: Partitioning during installation

Finally, https://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/ is what I used to setup my choices in boot manager and https://unetbootin.org/ is what I used to install (directly from the image in Windows, with no need for a CD or USB). But as with the earlier links I gave, these are also just suggestions.

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Thanks, I’ll give those links a look over tomorrow!