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Old 8th June 2010
Marrea Marrea is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2010
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BSDfan666 and ocicat

Many thanks for your replies. I thought I’d just give a little background.

For the last five years I have been successfully running a Windows XP/various flavours of Linux multiboot single hard drive computer. I currently have eight different Linux distros on it, and my primary bootloader is Windows boot.ini. With each new Linux installation I always put Grub on the Linux root partition, copy the bootsector across to the Windows root C: drive, add an entry in boot.ini and away I go. Nice and simple. Never any problems booting.

I do not like using Grub as my primary bootloader on any machine which also runs Windows. Once you let Grub take over the MBR it can - not always I admit, but quite often in my experience - cause problems. Not drastic, there is usually a way out, but all the same it can be fiddly and take time to fix when you suddenly find you can’t get into Windows or one or more of the distros because Grub has decided to go AWOL. However, I do have a couple of laptops which only run Linux (one of them dual boots two Linuxes) and there of course naturally I use Grub which by and large behaves itself. I must confess I definitely think Linux is much better not co-existing on the same machine alongside Windows.

Anyway, I was in the market for a more up-to-date desktop computer and while I was about it I thought I might as well take the opportunity to move to 64 bit. I have read frequently that in a dual boot situation it is a good idea to install Linux completely separately from Windows on a second hard drive. Unfortunately the articles have then never gone on to explain in detail how in fact you go about the procedure. Not to be dissuaded, I decided that my new computer would have two hard drives and I would have a shot at booting Linux off the second one. I also wanted to try and follow my usual practice of using the Windows bootloader to boot Linux. I did not want to use Grub, nor did I want to install a third party program such as EasyBCD, which as far as I am concerned is an unnecessary extra layer. I don’t believe that EasyBCD can do anything which can’t be done natively using the bcdedit commands, the only problem being of course finding out what those commands are!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by BSDfan666
If Linux is on a separate drive, why not just go into your BIOS and select the device? people come up with far to elaborate multiboot environments.
BSDfan666
I always knew that it was possible to go into the BIOS and change the boot order permanently (until such time that is as you go back in and change it again) and had thought about this as an option originally but discounted it as being a slightly untidy method. However, what I hadn’t appreciated until yesterday after reading your comment and doing some further research is that some BIOSes allow you to hit a key at startup, which takes you to a screen listing your various boot devices and you can simply click on the one you want to boot into at that particular time, ie you don’t have to alter the boot order at all. I dragged out my motherboard manual last night and was delighted to see that my particular BIOS does have this facility.

So what I have done today is boot into Ubuntu using the live installation CD, done a chroot and moved Grub to the MBR of the second hard drive (during installation I had placed it on the root partition). I have left the first hard drive as the first boot device so normally the computer will boot straight into Windows 7 but when I want to use Ubuntu all I have to do is hit F8 at start up, select the second hard drive and off it goes to Grub and boots. I really wish I had been aware of this feature before. We live and learn.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ocicat
A quick look through the sources I consulted to figure out the single disk environment with bcdedit does not mention multiple disks. I suspect the information is out there, but I have not found it.
ocicat
Yes, this has been my experience too. I cannot believe it can’t be done but so far I have had no success whatsoever.

Thank you for your three recommendations. As you will see from my comments to BSDfan66 above I have managed to solve my immediate problem of not being able to get into Ubuntu. However I am still interested in pursuing the inner workings of BCD and intend doing some more digging around and will certainly explore the avenues you have suggested.

Once again, thanks to both of you for your interest.
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