replace the grub starter

[pototo]

to understand, i have two partitions in my hard disk laptop, one for data and the other one for windows xp and I also have a extern usb hard disk, this one for ubuntu.


What I want to do is to boot Windows with GRUB starter without having to connect the USB hard disk( the hard disk where is ubuntu installed) to laptop.

because when I try to do it without USB hard disk connected, my laptop say "ERROR" and I would like don´t be changing from grub starter to windows starter and from windows starter to grub starter each time i wana be with linux or windows isn't the usb disk

Is there any way to relocate the grub files to the internal disk laptop and start up Windows without the external USB hard disk (that has Ubuntu installed)


SUMMARIZING... can I do that all necessary to carry out when I´ll start up my laptop (for start up with linux and windows) be found in the data partition laptop hard disk and don´t be found in the usb disk?

and how can i do that replace?

Thanks.

[Lostfarmer]

Take a look at using grub4dos. https://gna.org/projects/grub4dos/ , it will use XP's boot.ini, post back for help.

I think if you want to use grub installed on the main hdd MBR you will need a small linux partition ext2/3 on the same hdd for the rest of grub files. I had tried useing a FAT32 partition and it did not work but ext3 did. I know it will work for grub legacy but for grub 2 , not sure. I also do not know what grub ubuntu uses.

If you use grub legacy
1) make a small ext2/ext3 partition on internal hdd.
2) Make a folder 'boot'.
3) go to external hdd's 'boot' folder and copy folder 'grub' to internal hdd's 'boot' folder.
when done on internal hdd ext2 partition you will have -boot/grub/files 'stage 1 ,stage2,menu,message and a couple others.
4)reinstall grub useing new folder.
If you go this way and need help reinstalling grub, post back with output of 'fdisk -l'.

[yancek]

It sounds like you put the Grub stage1 file in the master boot record of your internal disk with xp when you installed Ubuntu. If you want to boot xp when the external hard disk is not attached you will need to repair the xp bootloader with your xp installation CD. There are numerous tutorials on how to do this. You will need to install Grub to the master boot record of the external drive.

If you can post the output of the "sudo fdisk -l" command (lower case Letter L) here, we will be able to see your partition information and you should be able to get some specific advice on how to do this.

[pototo]

thanks for your advice, I managed to run my laptop without the external disk