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orion2008
March 3rd, 2010, 02:29 AM
What I wanted to do:

I have a laptop for work that runs Win/XP. I wanted to load Ubuntu 9.10 onto an external hard drive so that when I travel at night I can use Linux for my personal surfing, etc. Most of the time I will boot to Win and use the apps that I do for my job, then I will use the BIOS to boot off the external powered USB drive.


SO, what happened is this:


I installed Ubuntu and it recognized that there was a winXP install and it put GRUB on the main hard drive and if I don't have the external USB attached, it gives me a “disk not found” error and dumps to the grub-recovery> prompt.

What I need to do (so I don't get into trouble with my Co.) is remove the grub from the main drive so that it will boot clean into WinXP. How do I do that?


Thanks in advance for your help

presence1960
March 3rd, 2010, 03:44 AM
What I wanted to do:

I have a laptop for work that runs Win/XP. I wanted to load Ubuntu 9.10 onto an external hard drive so that when I travel at night I can use Linux for my personal surfing, etc. Most of the time I will boot to Win and use the apps that I do for my job, then I will use the BIOS to boot off the external powered USB drive.


SO, what happened is this:


I installed Ubuntu and it recognized that there was a winXP install and it put GRUB on the main hard drive and if I don't have the external USB attached, it gives me a “disk not found” error and dumps to the grub-recovery> prompt.

What I need to do (so I don't get into trouble with my Co.) is remove the grub from the main drive so that it will boot clean into WinXP. How do I do that?


Thanks in advance for your help

Plug in the external disk and boot into Ubuntu. When the desktop loads open a terminal & run
sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pcHit enter on all windows until you get to the window of choosing where to put GRUB. Use your arrow keys to maneuver to sda and use the space bar to deselect sda. Then use the arrow keys to maneuver to sdb and use the space bar to select sdb. Hit Enter when completed.

Now to fix your internal disk's MBR so windows can boot. In terminal run
sudo apt-get install liloIgnore the warning. Then run
sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbrThis will fix your MBR so windows will boot when external is unplugged. Reboot and disconnect external to boot to windows.

Note: next time you install Ubuntu you can select where to put GRUB. At the Ready to install window click the Advanced button (see pic below). You can then choose where to put GRUB- in your case the MBR of external disk which should be /dev/sdb

orion2008
March 3rd, 2010, 05:07 AM
THANKS!!! that worked, so my boot works exactly how I wanted it to.

presence1960
March 3rd, 2010, 02:47 PM
THANKS!!! that worked, so my boot works exactly how I wanted it to.

Glad to hear you got it working. Enjoy your dual boot.

comp_007
March 3rd, 2010, 02:50 PM
Will it also install GRUB on external HDD too ?