You'd need a fresh install, since the hardware would be very different. I wouldn't recommend even trying, as I've seen folks do similar things with in theory identical hardware and the drive wouldn't boot on the new, and not on the old when moved back.
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
9 points (100.0% liked)
Steam Deck
14774 readers
144 users here now
A place to discuss and support all things Steam Deck.
Replacement for r/steamdeck_linux.
As Lemmy doesn't have flairs yet, you can use these prefixes to indicate what type of post you have made, eg:
[Flair] My post title
The following is a list of suggested flairs:
[Discussion] - General discussion.
[Help] - A request for help or support.
[News] - News about the deck.
[PSA] - Sharing important information.
[Game] - News / info about a game on the deck.
[Update] - An update to a previous post.
[Meta] - Discussion about this community.
Some more Steam Deck specific flairs:
[Boot Screen] - Custom boot screens/videos.
[Selling] - If you are selling your deck.
These are not enforced, but they are encouraged.
Rules:
- Follow the rules of Sopuli
- Posts must be related to the Steam Deck in an obvious way.
- No piracy, there are other communities for that.
- Discussion of emulators are allowed, but no discussion on how to illegally acquire ROMs.
- This is a place of civil discussion, no trolling.
- Have fun.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Is there a way to replace the windows installation on the SSD with a fresh one without erasing any of the data on it? Or would I have to move the data to something else
Not short of backing up the data on another drive. Unless you want to futz with the most core basic drivers that windows will require in order to fully boot. If you don't know how/want to push drivers via CLI, throwing your porn onto an external and then installing windows on the hardware itself works a jiffy.
If you can find a way to connect an SSD to the deck, I’m not sure if it’s SATA or whatever, if it’s connected and recognized, I don’t see a reason why the deck couldn’t boot from it. Not speaking from personal experience, all hypothetical, I could be wrong. Worth a shot if you understandably don’t want to do a fresh windows install
Hold the volume down button while booting to get to the boot menu. If you get a bootable drive connected, it should show up there. You could connect your windows ssd and it should work fine.
However, the steam deck needs its drivers for the GPU, Bluetooth, and similar. If you plan on swapping back and forth, that may not play nice. Installing portable windows to an SD card really ended up not being that hard and I'd be happy to link you to a guide if you needed one.