Dual boot question

Thanatos

Thanatos

Active Member
Well i have two identical hard drives, One with Windows XP, the other with Linux. is there a way to have a screen before i boot that lets me switch between drives?
 
see, when i go to BIOS, i can change the Priorities of the drives but It only sees 3, The HD that has Windows, my CD drive, and a 'Removable Device'. so There it dosen't even see my Ubuntu drive. The only way i know of to get to Ubuntu is to shut down and un-plug the Windows drive.
 
Green dog252 said:
see, when i go to BIOS, i can change the Priorities of the drives but It only sees 3, The HD that has Windows, my CD drive, and a 'Removable Device'. so There it dosen't even see my Ubuntu drive. The only way i know of to get to Ubuntu is to shut down and un-plug the Windows drive.
Click to expand...

When you installed Ubuntu, it should have asked you where you wanted to install it to. It would have then created a boot menu (GRUB) that would allow you to choose what OS you wanted to boot to (windows & Ubuntu).

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/switching/dualboot.html
 
*facepalm* I should have read your sig...

moving on, do you know if Grub is installed? You can check by looking for a folder in your filesystem named grub.d. That should have 5 executable files in it and one read me file.

or just run this code to see what version you have

PHP: 
grub-install -v

Edit: that sounds like a problem with your drive not being recognized in your bios.
 
Ok that is the newest version of grub. Good so it is installed.

Well I see 2 possible reasons that it is not booting grub first.

1. The windows bootloader has asserted itself as the dominant loader and the grub loader does not get a chance to work.

2. The grub loader can't scan across separate drives. I find this highly unlikely but there is a chance.

I'll search around to see if I can find anything that might help clear this up.
 
salvage-this said:
Ok that is the newest version of grub. Good so it is installed.

Well I see 2 possible reasons that it is not booting grub first.

1. The windows bootloader has asserted itself as the dominant loader and the grub loader does not get a chance to work.

2. The grub loader can't scan across separate drives. I find this highly unlikely but there is a chance.

I'll search around to see if I can find anything that might help clear this up.
Click to expand...

I have the feeling the Windows drive wasn't plugged in when he installed it, so it may not even know Windows is there.
 
I was just thinking the same thing. Nice catch.

I can't think of a reason why when you have the windows drive plugged in you can't find the Linux drive in your bios.
 
Green dog252 said:
The only way i know of to get to Ubuntu is to shut down and un-plug the Windows drive.
Click to expand...

I don't know if he is saying that whenever he uses windows drive he has to unplug the Linux drive or not. I guess he has to do it for Linux. I suppose we'll just have to wait till he posts back.
 
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