Disable Windows Fast Boot

March 4, 2019

For those dual-booting Windows and Linux, it’s useful to disable Windows Fast startup so that you can access the Windows partition from Linux. Disabling Fast Boot may add a few seconds to boot time. When you shutdown your PC, Fast Boot actually reboots and then hibernates. This locks the Windows partition so that Linux can’t access it.

Disable Fast Boot: run powercfg.cpl → “Choose what the power buttons do”. We typically disable hibernate as well to save on SSD wear.

BitLocker and dual-booting: If BitLocker is enabled, Linux cannot access the Windows partition.

Fast Boot SSD wear: Fast Boot just like hibernate increases solid state drive (SSD) wear, since you are dumping an image ~ RAM size to disk on each Fast Boot shutdown.