Dual Boot on Two Drives

[veganrailpunk]

Am I correct in thinking that in the menu.lst reference to hd(0,0) refers to the root partition of the master disk and hd(1,0) the root partition of the slave disk?

Just want to make sure before I start messing about with grub (whic I think I will have to do this heap of junk I'm using doesn't seem to want me to get into the bios to choose where I'm booting from).

Also can I edit this with a text editor (vi for example)?

yeah hd0,0 is first partition on the master etc

cd /boot/grub
sudo cp menu.lst menu.lst_backup
sudo gedit menu.lst

that'll create a backup then you can edit it in gedit

for full instructions see 1st post in this thread http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=179902

pete
xx

[Sailfish]

I have a system with 3 SATA drives. Separately on each drive I installed WinXP, Vista, Ubuntu 6.1. Each OS (except Ubuntu) beautifully when selected in the BIOS. Ubuntu boots beautifully when the other drives are disconnected. I don't want a boot loader to manage startup. I don't want Acronis, no Grub and no Lilo. I do know that I have Grub installed though.... When this system boots you just hit F11 and it lists the drives. Then toggle and enter. Grub somehow wants to reach out... How do I fix/stop this???

[gn2]

I have a system with 3 SATA drives. Separately on each drive I installed WinXP, Vista, Ubuntu 6.1. Each OS (except Ubuntu) beautifully when selected in the BIOS. Ubuntu boots beautifully when the other drives are disconnected. I don't want a boot loader to manage startup. I don't want Acronis, no Grub and no Lilo. I do know that I have Grub installed though.... When this system boots you just hit F11 and it lists the drives. Then toggle and enter. Grub somehow wants to reach out... How do I fix/stop this???

Did you disconnect the other drives before installing Ubuntu?

[j3cakes]

I thought grub was the loader for ubuntu so you couldn't stop it from running. You can disable the grub boot menu by removing any '#' before the 'hidden' keyword in the /boot/grub/menu.lst (as above) but it shouldn't run if you've not selected ubuntu.

My main PC has two SATA drives and this is how I do it too; F12 (on my machine) then pick a drive to boot from.

[gn2]

I thought grub was the loader for ubuntu so you couldn't stop it from running.

It is the default loader for Ubuntu. Other options are available.

You can disable the grub boot menu by removing any '#' before the 'hidden' keyword in the /boot/grub/menu.lst (as above) but it shouldn't run if you've not selected ubuntu.

If it does run under these circumstances it indicates that Grub has been installed on the selected drive.

My main PC has two SATA drives and this is how I do it too; F12 (on my machine) then pick a drive to boot from.

This is the best way I know of protecting your Windows installation.
If Grub is on the MBR of the Windows disc, and for whatever reason Grub needs to be updated/edited, Windows may not boot.

Windows has enough problems to contend with without adding Grub to the mix.........

[Sailfish]

Did you disconnect the other drives before installing Ubuntu?

Thank you for helping gn2!

Yes. I just did a reinstall with just the Ubuntu Drive attached. I booted once to be sure that the system would boot to Ubuntu and it did. Then I reconnected the other two drives and booted... It proceeds to the Ubuntu logo and progress bar before failing and saying - .bin.sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

(initramfs)

This is the live CD that offers the installation option once up. I installed with the "erase entire disk" option and Grub to(hd0). Partition #1 (0,1,0) (sda) as ext3
Partition #5 (0,1,0) (sda) as swap

[bulldog]

Thank you for helping gn2!

Yes. I just did a reinstall with just the Ubuntu Drive attached. I booted once to be sure that the system would boot to Ubuntu and it did. Then I reconnected the other two drives and booted... It proceeds to the Ubuntu logo and progress bar before failing and saying - .bin.sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

(initramfs)

This is the live CD that offers the installation option once up. I installed with the "erase entire disk" option and Grub to(hd0). Partition #1 (0,1,0) (sda) as ext3
Partition #5 (0,1,0) (sda) as swap

You use the wrong options for GRUB.
If it's installed on hd0 partition 1 use (hd0,1) not (hd0,1,0) GRUB won't understand this

And it beats me why you are disconnecting the other drives.
If you want to use one of them in Ubuntu,you have to mount them or edit fstab.
If you know how your disks are recognized in Ubuntu [sudo fdisk -l] it is easy to set it up with all your drives connected.

But what do I know.......

[Sailfish]

Thank you for helping gn2!

Yes. I just did a reinstall with just the Ubuntu Drive attached. I booted once to be sure that the system would boot to Ubuntu and it did. Then I reconnected the other two drives and booted... It proceeds to the Ubuntu logo and progress bar before failing and saying - .bin.sh: can't access tty; job control turned off

(initramfs)

This is the live CD that offers the installation option once up. I installed with the "erase entire disk" option and Grub to(hd0). Partition #1 (0,1,0) (sda) as ext3
Partition #5 (0,1,0) (sda) as swap

You use the wrong options for GRUB.
If it's installed on hd0 partition 1 use (hd0,1) not (hd0,1,0) GRUB won't understand this

And it beats me why you are disconnecting the other drives.
If you want to use one of them in Ubuntu,you have to mount them or edit fstab.
If you know how your disks are recognized in Ubuntu [sudo fdisk -l] it is easy to set it up with all your drives connected.

But what do I know.......

Just to make sure this is all straight... When installing Ubunto it indicated that it was installing Grub to (hd0). I don't actually know where it ultimately ended up. At the end of the install it provided the other information about Partions 1 & 5. If I do a reinstall and tell it to put Grub on (hd0,1), then that will allow me to boot the OS from the BIOS?

[bulldog]

Installing GRUB on (hd0,1) is not a good idea.
That would be in the first partition of hd0 and I don't think you want that.

You have to understand GRUB counts your disks starting with zero.
So your first disk is (hd0) your second is (hd1) and so on.
The partitions is the number behind the (,) so your fifth partition on your second disk is (hd1,4).

The best thing to do is install GRUB on the disk where Ubuntu is installed and install windows on a separate hard disk.
Now make the Ubuntu disk the master boot device and the windows disk slave.
You will see a GRUB menu and you can choose between windows and Ubuntu.

Only thing is,windows will not boot in this configuration,you have to do a little altering in your menu.lst

You have to map your drives,because windows like to think it's on the first boot device.
So map them as you can see in this example.

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title		Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda1
title		Microsoft Windows XP Professional
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
savedefault
chainloader	+1

Now windows will boot from the slave drive.
If you have to reinstall Ubuntu or windows,you won't have to bother about the other OS because they are on separate disks,and if GRUB might fail,you can boot windows by choosing this disk as boot device in your BIOS.

Hope this clears something for you.

Don't do a reinstall because GRUB isn't working or you can't find it.
First try to boot from both disks to see if GRUB is installed on the other disk,you can find an option to do so in your BIOS.
If GRUB is on the windows disk,pop in the windows install cd,and go through till you get three options,1]install windows 2]repair a windows install 3]exit,choose to repair a windows install.
Now you're taken to windows recovery console and after typing your admin password,you can give the command 'fixmbr' and/or 'fixboot'.
Now your windows boot loader should be reinstalled.

Now find out which disk is hd0 and hd1 with sudo fdisk -l.
Now boot into the live Ubuntu cd and when you're at the desktop open a terminal and type the following commands,

sudo grub

This will get you a grub> prompt

find /boot/grub/stage1

This will return a location which you have to use in the next command.

root (hd?,?)

Next enter the command to install grub to the mbr

setup (hd0)

Finally exit the grub shell

quit

Now Grub will be installed to the mbr.
Remember to make the last step,setup (hd0) for the disk where you want GRUB installed,so if this is (hd1) it would be setup (hd1) instead of (hd0).

If you have more questions about this,let me know,I will try to answer them if I can.

[Sailfish]

Thank you Bulldog for taking the time to help me with this. I truly appreciate what you are providing. In the true Borg spirit, I think that I will go with the flow on Grub per your instructions and see if I don't just learn a little bit about what is happening. It will at the least make my questions more sound.

Possibly my brain is tracking in a completely different universe here and I just don't get it.... Or I am explaining it so poorly that it is going nowhere. I will try again:

I put Windows on a drive. When I start the system I get Windows. Now I put OSx86 on a different drive and add it to the system. If I prioritize Windows in the BIOS, I get Windows. If I prioritize OSX, I get OSX. Now I put Ubuntu on a third drive and add it to the system. If I prioritize Ubuntu in the BIOS and boot, I do not get Ubuntu. ( I get /bin/sh: can't access tty ; job control turned off ) If I unplug everything but Ubuntu, I get Ubuntu. Why is it different? That is the big question.

My Motherboard, upon startup, says, "Press F11 for Boot Options." When I do that, I get a list of my drives. Then I just arrow to the one I want to boot and hit enter. It is completely independent of any operating systems attached to the system.

I would be thrilled to edit menu.lst or fstab to fix this... I just don't know how to do it.

If this needs to be explained to me in another fashion please feel free to educate me. I am very eager to understand