External ide hard drive

[Luckyjfl]

Hi Guys, a simple question , please. if I try to install a linux distro on an external hard drive, while I have windows XP on my primary, will the Linux stlil install a Grub on the Windows MBR. Or have I got that wrong. Look forward to your replies. Thank you.

lucky

[rcgreen]

It should give you a choice where to put GRUB. If you put it on the
MBR of the internal (Windows) drive, you will get a choice for dual
boot at boot time. You can choose to boot Windows or Linux.

The catch is that this will only work if the external drive is attached,
because files needed by GRUB are on there. If you install GRUB
onto the MBR of the external drive, it will boot Windows normally,
and only boot linux if your BIOS can boot the external drive and you
select that option in the BIOS setup.

It is also possible to put GRUB in the partition boot sector
of your Linux partition, but it would be necessary for some
other bootloader to "chain load" that partition.

There is no perfect solution where external drives are concerned,
because you will get different behavior when the drive is not
connected

[Luckyjfl]

Thank you RC. I think now, the best thing to do is partition the primary and let it go on there. It does seem straight forward. Haha, famous last words eh.

Anyway, thanks a lot.

All the best

Lucky