cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/40885318
I’m going to switch from Windows 11 to Linux soon but first I wish to backup every every data and config files I can in my current Windows installation, even those that wouldn’t natively work in Linux. I know the \Users folder is important to back up, but I don’t know what other directories I am missing.
Buy a new hard drive/SSD for your Linux installation. Put your Windows drive away in a drawer so all of its contents are saved, and you can swap it back in if you have to. A USB adapter can be helpful for retrieving files.
I did this, and installed the old drive into a USB adapter so I could easily pull any documents I may want to access. The Linux install will mount a NTFS drive, so worked great for that.
For the OP, while you CAN have the PC boot up to the Windows drive plugged into USB, I would not recommend doing it more than a couple times. Windows seems to hate this; I’ve had two installations of Win10 Pro eat itself and become unbootable, could not be repaired. The files were still accessible through Linux though so was able to make copies.
But first before you buy a new SSD don’t forget to go back to September of last year.
you can buy used hard drives for pretty reasonable amounts of money
If you have enough space for it, just keep it in the PC.