Dual Booting, 2 Hard Drives

Okay so I have my Partitions set up like this (According to Vista Partitioner)

Disk 0
(Unnamed Volume, probably OS???): 1.49gb Healthy (EISA Config)
SQ004441V05 (C: ) 110.32gb NTFS (System,boot,pagefile,etc,etc)

Disk 1
(D: ) 97.14gb NTFS Healthy (Logical Drive)
New Volume (G: ) 14.65gb NTFS Healthy (Logical Drive)
----
Now I am planning to install on G:
If i do, Will Grub still recognize the Vista partition on the Other Hard drive???? Or will it only detect other OSes on the same Hard Drive (Disk 1)

thanks

 

yes, you just need to make sure that your /boot/grub/menu.lst has an entry for your partition on the other disk, it may not be automatically created by the installer...but it should be. Make sure to install grub to your first disk's MBR

 

How do i go about doing that?

 

Erm, not sure which you mean so....

To edit your menu.lst just add a line with the hard disk ... I don't feel like typing it again I typed it here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4230797&postcount=4

In your case it would be the 2nd partition on the 1st disk with windows on it, exactly as I have in the example....

Now in terms of installing GRUB to your first disk's MBR, that is something you'll need to do from whatever installer for whatever distribution you choose. I use debian and it prompts you near the end of the installation.

 

Oh also you haven't left any room for a swap partition... and G will be useless except as a placeholder, you can't install to an NTFS volume, so be prepared to repartition that (from inside the installer probably with a manual partitioning option)

 

So basically. If i decide not to write to the First disks MBR, Vista will start up normally right?

Cant i just press f12 (which brings up boot slection device menu) when the computer starts and then Select the 2nd Hard drive to boot from?

Plus, what Format should the Swap space be in? I Was told that Unbuntu automatically partitions the partition for Swap space
Is this true?

 

I haven't run the ubuntu installer in a while, it's best to manually partition... swap has its own type so it should be pretty obvious once you get to the partitioning part....

Installing GRUB to your second disk's MBR is an option, but you will have to hit that F12 every time you want to boot ubuntu.. vista will boot normally but it's much more convenient to do it by installing to your first disk's MBR so that you get the grub boot menu automatically, it's your preference really

 

I See. So if i manually partition with unbuntu, does it allow me to set swap space size?
If not, How does it recognize the Swap partition?
Plus doesnt grub install with unbuntu? like doesnt it just start when you reset the system?
Let me set up a scenerio

Windows is on Disk 0
Unbuntu is on Disk 1

sda has not had the MBR Modified
sdb has a Modified MBR

When system starts, i press f12. If i dont I go into vista.
I choose the second hard drive

Unbuntu starts

Am i right?

 

Yeah, manually partitioning, you would set it up just like your root partition, except it doesn't need a mount point. Just subtract about 2GB or so from your ext3 root partition to leave space for setting up the swap partition. It will be formatted and "turned on" automatically after you initialize it.

This is why I made the point of installing to your first hard disk's mbr (it may do it automatically and not present you a choice from the installer anyway)... otherwise grub may install to your second disk since that's the one that holds the root partition. I could be wrong, it's been a while since I used the ubuntu installer.

Yes, that's correct... but not the way I'd do it. I would install to the MBR of the first disk but as I said that's your option... it's a matter of preference and either will work

 

Ubuntu recognised everything for me. I have Vista on first hd, ubuntu on second.