Acer Nitro 5 Dual Boot 2nd Hard Drive

This is a two-part post. First, I will go over the trick to get the Acer Nitro 5 AN515-55 laptop to dual-boot with Linux and then I will describe adding a second hard drive, both PCIE and SSD.

NOTE: The BIOS key is F2 and the Boot Order Key is F12.

Special BIOS V2.06 settings to Dual Boot Acer Nitro 5

I don’t remember where I got this information from, but here are the settings you need to make in the BIOS V2.06 to dual-boot Linux with Windows, including one “secret” hidden setting. In order to change the BIOS security setting, add a BIOS password first. After getting to the BIOS by pressing the F2 key repeatedly during boot:

• Security Tab. Enable BIOS Password and REMEMBER it!
• Boot Tab. Set Secure Boot = OFF.
• Main Tab. Set Fast Boot = OFF.
• Main Tab. Press BOTH Ctrl+S keys to expose “secret” settings. Set SATA Mode = AHCI.

In my case, this worked and allowed me to dual-boot my computer with Windows 11 and Ubuntu Linux.

Notes on Dual Booting Windows and Linux

There are sooooo many videos on Youtube that you can watch where the person goes through every screen of the installation process. Go there if you need help with that. Here are a few tips I’ve come across after doing this dozens of times over about twenty years.

Disclaimer: I’m not a computer hardware expert. If I’m recommending these points to you, it’s probably because I got the idea from someone else. Read the Terms of Use for this website. I make mistakes and you should NOT use this information as your only source.

Rules of Thumb for Dual Boot Windows and Linux

• Use a separate physical drives for Windows and Linux. This makes it much safer. In case you mess up one, you can change the boot order in the BIOS and use the other system to go online and repair.
• Have the installation of Windows finished before installing Linux. I’m not positive, but I think it allows for the GRUB boot loader to be setup more easily. In fact, instead of learning all the details about how booting works, I just unplug the linux drive until I have Windows installed.
• I ended up deleting all partitions on the drive that came with the computer and Windows created the three partitions it needed. I think in the past, if I left the EFI partition as is, there were leftover boot options(?). In other words, I recommend you do not just pick the NTFS patition and install Windows there.

Paritioning Note: This is not a post to learn about partitions, but just remember that you are working at the most basic hardware level. Every command must be finished before beginning another. For example, you delete a partition and commit/okay it, THEN you create a new one, you don’t create a new one where one exists. There are definitely no “undo” commands so be careful.

Handy Boot Commands if Something Goes Wrong

During one of my many mistakes I found these two commands to 1) Show the boot order, and 2) Adjust the boot order. In this example, Windows was booting first and I had no access to the Linux boot menu with choices.

sudo efibootmgr

sudo efibootmgr --bootorder 0003, 0002

The first command lists the boot items in their sequence. The second command sets the sequence and would give the response “Boot current 0003”. This may be a duplication of what can be done in the BIOS, but it’s simple enough to execute from a “live” USB linux distro.

Part 2: Acer Nitro 5 Second Hard Drive Installation

This particular laptop is overkill for what I use it for. It was sold as a gaming laptop but I don’t play games. I got it on a sale and appreciate the great graphics response for doing photo editing. It came with Windows 10 and Windows 11 free upgrade. It is still a decent desktop replacement in 2025 so I’m going ahead and posting about it now.

To add a second hard drive, turn the latop over and remove all the screws with a mini Phillips head scredriver. Next you need to remove the cover and it is never easy. I usually need to use something super-skinny to create a crack and then can use a small flat-head screw driver to start lifting the back cover. Once started, it makes a few uncomfortable “snaps” but comes off pretty easy.

Here are the spaces for the two extra hard drives you can add. One PCIE (NVME) and one 2.5in SSD. There is a wafer-thin cable for the SSD so be very carefull moving it around and putting it in the connector.

The PCIE drive is easy. Unscrew the screw, angle the drive in and set flat. Reinsert and snug up the screw. There is an existing one to see how it should look and check the size. An M.2 2280 stick is 22mm x 80mm, for example.

This is the NVME M.2 I bought way back when: https://www.newegg.com/samsung-1tb-980/p/N82E16820147804

Mini Review of Acer Nitro 5 Laptop

I’ve been really happy with this purchase. My requirements for getting a laptop were to have a keyboard that lit up and decent memory / graphics so that I could use the GIMP to edit photos on it efficiently. There is some Acer software that manages the cooling if you are playing games that don’t transfer to Linux but, like I said, I’ve never tried to play a game on it.

It’s heavy and the battery doesn’t last that long with the keyboard on, but you can toggle that off in the daylight. I almost always have the ability to plug it in so I don’t notice much about the battery. It’s great having space for 3 hard drives and I still don’t notice any lags with Windows 11 or Ubuntu 24.04.

Any other information I have about computer hardware will be in the Computer Category of the blog.