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Thread: Dual Boot on Two Drives

  1. #11
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Quote Originally Posted by sirius10 View Post
    Hey, I have the same problem. 2 hardiscks - 2 operating systems. First is Ubuntu, 2nd is WinXP. I waited for Grub to show the menu in which I would choose the OS but it only tells me to press ESC to enter the menu. I did so and WinXP it's not even listed! I'm a fresh Ubuntu/Linux user, I didn't even knew till today that there should have been a menu... I booted different OS by changing info in BIOS! Please, is there anyone there who could help me? Maybe enlight me a little bit? And, something else: I read somewhere else that is not a good idea to install Windows after Ubuntu (but I just found out that too...) Is it true? Help, help, help!
    Maybe this thread can help:
    http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=179902
    Ignore the section on disconnecting drives, etc...you already have Ubuntu & Windows installed, you might just want to try adding the Windows entry manually to your /boot/grub/menu.lst.

    You might want to open a terminal(Applications---Accessories---Terminal), enter:
    Code:
    sudo fdisk -l
    The -l is a small "L"

    then
    Code:
    cat /boot/grub/menu.lst
    menu.lst is short for menu.list, not menu.first

    Post the output of the above 2 commands, if you can't get Windows to boot from the link I gave you.
    Last edited by confused57; October 13th, 2006 at 07:12 PM.

  2. #12
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Quote Originally Posted by confused57 View Post
    Ignore the section on disconnecting drives, etc...
    But that's what this thread is all about, the option to circumvent Grub issues which are a complete pain in the a**e

  3. #13
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    Smile Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    I was able to create a boot disk for WindowsXP on a floppy and edit the boot.ini settings to include Ubuntu that way when I want to boot from Ubuntu I insert the disk to and when I dont I leave the disk out of the drive works for me since I share a computer with someone else and we each have our own hard drives

  4. #14
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Quote Originally Posted by gn2 View Post
    But that's what this thread is all about, the option to circumvent Grub issues which are a complete pain in the a**e
    Yes, I agree grub can be difficult to configure, but I wanted to offer another choice for the poster that I replied to(he mentioned he'd already booted using bios). In fact, I've placed a link to this thread in the "howto" that I supplied in my other reply, for anyone who might want to use bios to boot Ubuntu & Windows on different hard drives.

    Using bios to boot Ubuntu or Windows is a viable option and is preferred by many people dualbooting with 2 hd's.

  5. #15
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Quote Originally Posted by confused57 View Post
    Using bios to boot Ubuntu or Windows is a viable option and is preferred by many people dualbooting with 2 hd's.
    I say it should be the recommended option.

    The popular conception these days is that Ubuntu "Just works"

    So it's a pity the hazards of dual-booting and Grub aren't better explained at the outset to the unsuspecting new user, who comes full of hope and expectation.

    And often ends up severely hacked off.

    I would suggest that single hard drive dual booting should carry much more warnings and explanation of all the potential hazards in the official documentation. Without this Ubuntu is being reckless with prospective users' valuable data.

    I found out about it the hard way, and I wouldn't wish it on others......

  6. #16
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Gn2, if I may ask: what happened to you when you installed your dual boot? I've seen a number of your posts referencing a bad experioence with it. I ask because I (as the noob I am) installed Ubuntu as a dual boot with XP on the same SATA drive and had GRUB install on the mbr, but I've had no troubles whatsoever. Makes me nervous now, as I'm thinking of installing another SATA drive and loading Edgy on it once it's released, so now I'm wondering how I should go about doing so.

    Feel free to toss me a PM if you think this is too off topic for this thread. Cheers.

  7. #17
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    Thank you so much! Your link really helped me!
    I did that step by step and now Grub shows me the menu and I have the possibility to boot whatever OS I desire. Automatically, it boots the XP if I don't choose otherwise. Even though I work much more with Ubuntu than with XP it's great that I don't need to enter Bios and loose time this way.
    Is there any possibility to include that helpful thread in the WIKI or something? I'm sure that there are a lot of people that would find this very helpful, as I did.
    Thanks again for your help!

  8. #18
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    I agree dual-booting hazards (especially GRUB failures) should be made clearer.

    My original install of 5.10 to a second HD coincided with its failure, leaving me with GRUB looking for a second disk that didn't exist and no Windows MBR on the primary. Luckily I know about FixMBR, I'd never alter hd0 MBR again. My philosphy now is one OS on one HD which is bootable on its own.

    Second time round I intalled 6.06 to the secondary HD (after discconnecting master) and put GRUB on the slave MBR. Connected the master back up and got the BIOS to boot from the slave disk first. Changed the grub list to add Windows partition.

    Like I said I only altered the grub menu because my BIOS ignores the preset boot order if the F8 menu has been used (ever!)

  9. #19
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    I did a dual boot with 2 HDD's as well. I have 3 HDDs, (1 sata with win xp, 1 ide as storage, and another sata i put ubuntu on). I disconnected the first 2 drives mentioned to do the Ubuntu install but when i reconnected them afterwards, Ubuntu fails to load. I changed boot order in my bios and Ubuntu will start the loading process, but fails shortly after. I can change the boot order for my win xp hdd and win xp will load just fine. My guess is that Ubuntu is trying to load the filesystem from my ide drive since thats disk 0 (not sure why its the first disk).

    Any suggestions? I think I have to chnage what hd Ubuntu thinks the filesystem is on, but thats a big guess since i'm still new linux.

  10. #20
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    Re: Dual Boot on Two Drives

    This boot from bios option is exactly what i have been after!

    I just need something clarified b4 i try it. My second drive is my data storage & i will still need to partition this drive for windows use.

    By using the 1st section of the drive for windows & the second section of the drive for xubuntu, will it still boot into xubuntu from the boot menu F8?

    Given that in reality the second drive will be partitioned & not used in its entirety for Xubuntu.

    Many thanks for any help on this

    Oxy, a recent SuSe convert

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