Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

[ScottyK]

My desktop is a dual boot system (Vista & Kubuntu 10.04).

Vista resides on Hard Drive #1

Kubuntu Resides on Hard Drive #2.

HD #2 is 500GB, half for Kubuntu, and half for extra storage under Vista.

Kubuntu runs great. but for some reason, under Vista the windows partition of that 500GB drive will "disappear" after a while, forcing a cold shutdown and reboot to get the computer to "see" it again. It even disappears in the BIOS setup, but if the computer stays turned off for about 5 minutes, BIOS will see it again.

Anyway, I'm going to yank that drive out and put another one in, and split the partitions again.

When I reinstall Kubuntu, will GRUB successfully write to the MBR, or will it continue to "look" for the old installation?

Any other tips/suggestions for a successful reinstall would be great. Thanks!

[oshunluvr]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

I assume you have checked cables and connections to be sure it's the drive thats failing?

The new install will recreate the MBR and install grub to your new drive. If you don't want to do the reinstall you can install the new drive as drive #3 and copy the entire contents from #2 to it, then swap them.

[ScottyK]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Thanks for the info.

I've swapped cables twice, and even moved positions on the motherboard. For some reason, the drive works perfectly as a single drive computer. But it doesn't want to be a "slave"!

[dibl]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

You might want to look at the power management settings in Windows -- it almost sounds like the second drive is "going to sleep" after a period of no accesses. Just a thought. Also you might want to check your motherboard's BIOS version and see whether an upgrade is available -- you could review the release notes and see if they're updated the power management firmware.

[verndog]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Thanks for the info.

I've swapped cables twice, and even moved positions on the motherboard. For some reason, the drive works perfectly as a single drive computer. But it doesn't want to be a "slave"!

If it were the cables you wouldn't be able to access the hard drive in the first place. I think dibl's idea that its going to sleep seems more feasible.

[Snowhog]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

dibl's comment as to the drive going to sleep deserves exploration. I remember that he commented previously, that some HDs have built-in hardware/software power management controllers, and that disabling such (in Linux) may not be possible?

[ScottyK]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Thanks for the tip about the power settings. I just went into the advanced power settings and noticed that the hard drive was set to go to "sleep" after 20 minutes of inactivity. Didn't see a "never" option, so I changed it to the max 99999.

Strangely, the drive is still visible after 4 days since the last cold restart.

Off to find out if I have a BIOS upgrade available.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Great catch dibl 8)

[ScottyK]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

I've got the latest BIOS, so it might just be a dud drive. As cheap as HD are these days, I'm not going to spend much more time on this drive.

[dibl]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Great catch dibl 8)

Thank you, sir. And I am jealous of your hardware!

I've got the latest BIOS, so it might just be a dud drive. As cheap as HD are these days, I'm not going to spend much more time on this drive.

No, it's not a dud, it's designed that way. I'm not a Win Vista user at all, but in most power management utilities there is an ability to set the sleep/screen saver to "Never" go to sleep. If you can find that, you'll solve it permanently. Right now, you obviously have it set in some power saving mode where the drive is permitted to go to sleep after a period of inactivity, and you have worked around the default by changing it from 20 minutes to 99999 minutes. But what you really need to do is change it from "power conserving" to "performance" mode, or however that is designed in Win Vista, so it never goes to sleep. If you can do that, then it won't matter what the minutes value is.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

Scotty - before you give up look into some possible solution elsewhere re: your drive. You might be surprised. Yesterday, I discovered a DOS program for WD drives that turns off a function called TLER on their "Desktop" drives that basically lets them function like their more expensive RE (aka RAID Edition) drives. Modern hard drives are little computers by themselves.


dibl: I'm already planning my next unit! Of course, I have to wait for this one to die or win the lottery because if I build another computer "just because" that pretty face over to the left there will NOT be happy!

[dibl]

Re: Best Way to reinstall on a dual boot system?

I hear that. I've got my "pretty face" looking forward to my next homebuilt system, based on her getting the existing computer to replace her aging (2004) box, and one of the kids gets that one. It's the "Musical computers" game.

i7 930, here I come!