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I have successfully installed three OSs; Kali linux, Ubuntu and Windows 8. What are the chances I break my system if I use this type of 'way of using pc' for years?

Is it possible to break my system if let say I boot Kali Linux, and then accidentally view (just view, not open) windows restricted files or some sort?

What rate of brick/system failure should I expect?

terdon
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Fadh Nhz
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5 Answers5

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No, you won't. You can expect 0 rate of system failure unless you do something silly like delete files that are essential to one of the other operating systems. You can have as many OSs installed as you like, they do not communicate and they won't affect each other. Why should they?

By the way, there's no such thing as "viewing" a file without "opening" it. I suppose you meant viewing and not editing. In any case, as long as all you do is read files and not change them, that won't affect your system, no. Each installed OS should have its own partition(s) and won't be affected by the others unless you try really hard to break it.

terdon
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    If you are multi-booting with windows 8 and you want to mount the windows partition in Linux, be sure to turn off Fast Startup (or something like that). Because windows doesn't unmount its partition and may corrupt files. – Alko Mar 25 '15 at 14:10
  • That's hybrid shutdown - basically a log off and then a hibernate. To disable see this Super User thread, or hold shift while you click shut down if you only want to disable it sometimes. – kirb Mar 26 '15 at 10:58
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As @terdon explained in his excellent answer, no, you shouldn't expect breakage.

One thing that could definitely break, though, is your bootloader. Windows has its own bootloader as does Linux. If it's a BIOS bootloader, the BIOS lives in the first bytes of the boot hard disk. If you install Linux to use GRUB as the BIOS bootloader, then install Windows, Windows will likely have overwritten GRUB in the BIOS bootloader. The Windows bootloader only supports booting Windows (surprise!), while GRUB supports lots of different OS choices.

If Windows ever tries updating the bootloader, which could happen if they find a security flaw in it (and bother to fix it!), this will overwrite your BIOS bootloader and cause a great deal of suckage. It's obviously fixable, but annoying because you'll need a CD or USB drive to boot into to reinstall GRUB.

Whether this counts as breaking an OS is left to the reader.

Community
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Naftuli Kay
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  • Worth noting Windows' bootloader can boot other bootloaders, but not to say that it's ideal (GRUB must be on a Windows-readable filesystem, and since Windows 8 you have to wait for Windows to boot and then shut down). – kirb Mar 26 '15 at 11:06
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Works no problem, but one caveat: Make sure and disable "Fast Startup" for Windows 8. To do that: - go to power options - click "choose what the power button does" - click "change settings that are currently unavailable" (may have to scroll down to see this, don't remember for sure) - uncheck the "Fast Startup" option.

If you do not disable fast startup Windows will not flush all changes to the drive every time. Shared drives then look corrupted to the other OS and they may try to fix things. Not good.

Manoj Patel
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There's one way to break things in a multi-boot situation that none of the other answers has covered: if you hibernate the system when switching between OSs. The hibernated copy of the OS contains assumptions about the state of the hardware (most importantly, the hard disk) that may not be valid after an OS switch. Always shut down completely between OS changes.

Mark
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  • Does it apply with Sleep mode too? Actually i never tried sleep mode to change Os. So i dont know if its infact possible or not. – Fadh Nhz Mar 26 '15 at 08:12
  • Sleep mode doesn't power the machine down far enough to switch OSs. – Mark Mar 26 '15 at 09:58
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There is a very small chance of breakage if a future Windows update updates the MBR, in which case it'll overwrite the current bootloader you have (either GRUB or Syslinux) and your Linuxes will be temporarily unbootable until you boot on a Linux installation disc and reinstall GRUB.

  • Is there a way i can prevent/consider the MBR update and has this sort of problem ever happen in the past ? – Fadh Nhz Mar 26 '15 at 08:14