Multi boot multi hardrives help.

[juliag]

I'm trying to wrap my head around this.
My current setup is 2 hard drives configured at raid 0 with vista/xp installed.

I'm thinking of removing raid config and have 2 hard separate drives. One with windows partitions and the other with linux partitions.

So, lets say I wanted to have vista/xp/7 on one drive and ubuntu/debian/gentoo on the other. How would I go about doing this? I'm assuming I would have to install Vista first, create 6 partitions and go from there. I'm not sure how the bootloaders would interact though. I did have a program that edits the MBR but the name escapes me...it was bsd something lol. Just a little foggy on how this would work. Help please

[computerophil]

Hallo,

There is a thread that you should read:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/lin...tml#post706332

ofcourse you have two harddisks but this doesn't change too much.

If there remains a question open please ask again

[computerophil]

In your case I would use the nt-bootloader coming automatically with windows on the first hd and on the second I would put grub into each Superbootblock of the Linuxpartitions (that is the second method described in the other thread).

[juliag]

Could you explain the superbootblock method more ?

[computerophil]

Could you explain the superbootblock method more ?

I don't know what you didn't understand?
Usually reading carefully the installing advices you can choose if you want grub into MBR or into the linux partition. You give into the Console from LiveCD dd... so you make a copy of your booting entries which you put into C:/
With the changing of the boot.ini the PC learns where to look for the copy of the bootsecX.lin this leads to the right Partition and so it will find the menue.lst to enter Linux.
But I think if I try to explain with words it sounds more complicated than this way:

a) Grubinstaller > into rootdirectory of linuxpartition
b) Console: dd if=/dev/hdaX of=/tmp/bootsecX.lin bs=512 count=1
c) copy bootsecX.lin from Temp-directory into C:/
d) change C:/boot.ini: c:\bootsecX.lin="Grub > Linux"
e) adapt menue.lst at linuxpartition in Boot/Grub/..


X.... number of partition
It might be hda or sda for harddisk
a is the first harddisk , b the second and so on
Grub and Linux not always see partitions the same way: instead of a and b there might be a number (started from 0 and separated with a comma from the number of the partition)

[juliag]

In your case I would use the nt-bootloader coming automatically with windows on the first hd and on the second I would put group into each Superbootblock of the Linuxpartitions (that is the second method described in the other thread).

Okay, I think I understand now you must have meant grub and not group in the above post. Because of that I thought I was some how grouping the linux installations. Forgive my slowness of the brain lol.

Also, silly question, would I be modifying the options in order to install grub on the linux partitions at the the time of each linux install, or would I have to edit the boot.ini file?

[devils casper]

Easiest way to setup multiboot in two or more Harddisks is, keep everything default imho.

Just install Windows OS in first Hard disk. Unplug it hard disk having Windows OS and plug-in other disk as Primary Master and install Linux OS in it.

After successful Linux installation, plug-in Windows OS disk as Secondary ( Slave ) and add necessary code in Grub configuration file to setup dual boot.

[computerophil]

Okay, I think I understand now you must have meant grub and not group in the above post. Because of that I thought I was some how grouping the linux installations. Forgive my slowness of the brain lol.

Also, silly question, would I be modifying the options in order to install grub on the linux partitions at the the time of each linux install, or would I have to edit the boot.ini file?

Sorry for the mistake (english is torture for me)

[devils casper]

It will be really tricky to edit boot.ini after every linux install. As I mentioned earlier, you should keep Linux and Windows OSes independent of each other. Use Linux Boot Loader ( GRUB ) as for multiboot setup and add Windows OS entry in its conf file.