Boot from either hard drive?

[Francis Marsden]

There are two physical drives on my system. One is loaded with XP Home, the
other is empty now but I intend to load it with Ubuntu Linux. Is it
possible to configure a PC so that on starting up the comp, I have a choice
of booting from either hard drive? Would it be better to put both operating
systems on one hard drive ? (I think this is called dual boot, and I think
it possible in this case to have a choice of OS's to start.) Thanks in
advance.



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[Malke]

There are two physical drives on my system. One is loaded with XP Home,
the
other is empty now but I intend to load it with Ubuntu Linux. Is it
possible to configure a PC so that on starting up the comp, I have a
choice
of booting from either hard drive? Would it be better to put both
operating
systems on one hard drive ? (I think this is called dual boot, and I
think
it possible in this case to have a choice of OS's to start.) Thanks in
advance.

When you install Ubuntu, it will install its bootloader (Grub). Grub will
give you a choice as to what operating system you want to boot into every
time you start the computer. So no worries there. It's always better to put
different operating systems on separate hard drives if you can.

Malke

 

[peter]

Malke described one way of dual booting here is another way
If your computer supports the F12 method of choosing which HD to boot from
during the boot process
you can disconnect the drive that XP is on and install Linux on the
remaining connected drive. No files will be
changed on the XP drive because it is not connected. After you reconnect the
XP drive and Boot up
push F12 during boot and the BIOS boot screen will come up where you can
designate which drive you wish
to boot from at that point in time. If you do nothing the XP drive will
boot.
In this way there will be no Grub loaded onto the XP drive and it makes for
an easier removal of Linux
should you decide to undo dual boot.
I run XP and Windows 7 Beta in this manner

peter

 

[Patrick Keenan]

There are two physical drives on my system. One is loaded with XP Home,
the other is empty now but I intend to load it with Ubuntu Linux. Is it
possible to configure a PC so that on starting up the comp, I have a
choice of booting from either hard drive? Would it be better to put both
operating systems on one hard drive ? (I think this is called dual boot,
and I think it possible in this case to have a choice of OS's to start.)
Thanks in advance.

Yes, this is called dual-booting, and while it's possible for all to go
swimmingly, it's also possible for it to go terribly wrong.

So, the very first step is to ensure that your system is properly backed up
BEFORE you start modifying the boot records. A good idea is to make an
image of the original configuration and set that aside so that if you have
to, you can restore to a properly working PC in short order.

I would suggest that you should use a separate hard disk for the Ubuntu
install, to minimize the interaction with the XP install.

If you are just looking at Ubuntu, download the Live CD image and spend some
time running that. Ensure that your hardware all works with it.

HTH
-pk

 

[Francis Marsden]

How can I find out first if my comp supports the f12 option to choose boot
drive? Would it be enabled by default, or would I have to go into setup
(bios?) to enable it , and how would I do it. ?

Malke described one way of dual booting here is another way
If your computer supports the F12 method of choosing which HD to boot from
during the boot process
you can disconnect the drive that XP is on and install Linux on the
remaining connected drive. No files will be
changed on the XP drive because it is not connected. After you reconnect
the XP drive and Boot up
push F12 during boot and the BIOS boot screen will come up where you can
designate which drive you wish
to boot from at that point in time. If you do nothing the XP drive will
boot.
In this way there will be no Grub loaded onto the XP drive and it makes
for an easier removal of Linux
should you decide to undo dual boot.
I run XP and Windows 7 Beta in this manner

__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4049 (20090501) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com

 

[Patrick Keenan]

How can I find out first if my comp supports the f12 option to choose boot
drive? Would it be enabled by default, or would I have to go into setup
(bios?) to enable it , and how would I do it. ?

It would appear on the screen when you start the system from power-off.

Power down, power on, watch the monitor.

HTH
-pk

 

[Francis Marsden]

I found that in both power-ups and restarts, in the first screen appearing,
there is an option to "press F8 for BBS popup", and doing so gives me the
option to boot from either floppy, or either cd/dvd drive, or either hard
drive. Yahoo!!



__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4049 (20090501) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com