Dual-booting Linux on a Windows Machine with BitLocker

1. Prepare your Linux USB
   1. Download your Linux ISO. Ubuntu can be found here.
   2. Download Etcher at this link.
   3. Plug in your USB drive and ensure there is no data you need as this process will format and wipe the USB drive
   4. Open Etcher, click “Flash from File,” and navigate to where you downloaded your Linux ISO at
   5. Click “Select target” and choose the USB drive you want to use as the installer
   6. Click “Flash!”
2. Suspend or Disable BitLocker if it’s enabled:
   1. Open Control Panel
   2. Click BitLocker Drive Encryption (Icons) or System and Security (Categories)
   3. Click Suspend
   4. Click Yes. The next time you boot to your Windows desktop, it will resume encryption automatically. Due to this, If at any point before completing the Linux install, you will need to Suspend BitLocker again
   5. If you opt to disable BitLocker, this will take time before your drive is unencrypted and you must re-encrypt once back in Windows if wanted
3. Partition your drive for Linux
   1. Open Windows Tools from the Start Menu
   2. Open Computer Management
   3. Click Disk Management in the left column
   4. Click C: in the top section
   5. Right click on the C: Partition in the bottom section and click Shrink Volume
   6. In the editable field, type the size in MB that you want your Linux partition to be. Ubuntu recommends 10 GB(10,000 MB) at the minimum, but you can choose any size above that
   7. Hit Shrink
4. Install Linux (This guide will use Ubuntu)
   1. Shut down your laptop and plug your USB in
   2. Power up the laptop and tap F12 until you get to the boot selection screen and boot from your USB drive. This will likely show the brand of the drive
   3. “Try or Install Ubuntu” should be highlighted, hit the Enter Key
   4. Proceed through the steps to select your language, accessibility needs, keyboard layout, network connection, option to Update, Install Ubuntu, “Interactive Installation,” if you want an “extended selection” of applications, and if you want to install additional drivers and codecs
   5. Select “Manual installation,” the other two options will not work unless BitLocker is fully disabled
   6. You should see a partition labeled “Free space” and the size that you chose when you partitioned. Click that row.
   7. Hit the + button and choose / for the “Mount point,” and click OK
   8. Continue on and setup your account, choose Timezone, and finally Install

If you run into any issues, please submit a ticket. If you get a BitLocker Recovery screen, please see this article on how you can retrieve your unlock code.