[Solved] Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

[giser3546]

I'm wanting to dual boot my Kubuntu 10.04 with Windows 7, for gaming. Problem is I would rather not reformat my existing hard drive. Could I avoid reformatting my hard drive by just getting another hard drive, and installing my new os on it? I'm even considering getting a SSD to run windows and any games. How would I go about this?

[dibl]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

I'm wanting to dual boot my Kubuntu 10.04 with Windows 7, for gaming. Problem is I would rather not reformat my existing hard drive. Could I avoid reformatting my hard drive by just getting another hard drive, and installing my new os on it?

Yes. The boot menu and Grub installation will take some care and attention -- you need to Google "dual boot ubuntu and win 7" and start reading.

I'm even considering getting a SSD to run windows and any games. How would I go about this?

The SSD can be treated as a hard disk drive, formatted, and Windows can be installed on it. That's the simple answer. You can learn more on the user forums of the SSD OEMs, for example here: http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/fo...-SSD-ABC-Guide

[giser3546]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

I found some guidance on this but am kinda stuck at the moment. I was told to edit my menu.lst file in the /boot/grub directory. Trouble is, there isn't a menu.lst file. I did some research and saw the grub.cfg does the same thing but once opened in nano it says "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" should I proceed anyway, is there another file I should edit instead or do I need to create a menu.lst somehow... if so how would I do this.

[Detonate]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

You don't really need to do that. Whatever you were reading was written for the old grub. Grub2 is what we use now and it will automatically detect all of the OS's installed on your computer during installation. If you install Kubuntu first, and there is no OS on your other drive, and you later install Windows on the other drive, all you need to do is run

sudo update-grub

in a terminal and it will find it and add it to the menu.

[saurav]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

What is your current set up and which OS do you want to install as the new one?

[giser3546]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

Started witha 500gb hd with Kubuntu 10.04 installed on it. Just added a 320 gb with Windows 7 on it. When I start up I neither OS will boot.

[saurav]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

If you have installed or plan to install Windows while Kubuntu is already installed (i.e., installing Windows after having installed Kubuntu), Windows will overwrite your boot loader (GRUB) which is in charge of letting you select and load the OS of your choice after turning on the computer. In this case you need to restore the GRUB boot loader. You will get the details on that here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows. But note that it's a long and involved process.

[giser3546]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

I was apparently going on instructions based on the old grub when I did it but I removed the old hd (kubuntu), plugged in the new one (blank) then installed Windows 7.

[saurav]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

I was apparently going on instructions based on the old grub when I did it but I removed the old hd (kubuntu), plugged in the new one (blank) then installed Windows 7.

But even that way it won't work if you just put the Kubuntu disk back in. You'll still have to update the GRUB loader.

[giser3546]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

Issue has been solved, just ran sudo update-grub, solved another unrelated issue and now its working great. thanks everyone

[saurav]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

Good to hear that your problem has been solved.

[perspectoff]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

If you have installed or plan to install Windows while Kubuntu is already installed (i.e., installing Windows after having installed Kubuntu), Windows will overwrite your boot loader (GRUB) which is in charge of letting you select and load the OS of your choice after turning on the computer. In this case you need to restore the GRUB boot loader. You will get the details on that here - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows. But note that it's a long and involved process.

That's not at all true. Grub does not get overwritten.

The Master Boot Record is merely a set of registers that tells the BIOs where to look for the primary bootloader. What gets changed by Windows (and by (K)/Ubuntu if you let it) is the Master Boot Record.

All that has to be done is to reset the Master Boot Record to refer once again to the (K)Ubuntu Grub bootloader instead of the Windows bootloader.

Many people unfortunately refer to this as "re-installing Grub to the Master Boot Record" but that is a very misleading characterization.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Adding a hard drive and running another os from it

That's not at all true. Grub does not get overwritten.

The Master Boot Record is merely a set of registers that tells the BIOs where to look for the primary bootloader. What gets changed by Windows (and by (K)/Ubuntu if you let it) is the Master Boot Record.

All that has to be done is to reset the Master Boot Record to refer once again to the (K)Ubuntu Grub bootloader instead of the Windows bootloader.

Many people unfortunately refer to this as "re-installing Grub to the Master Boot Record" but that is a very misleading characterization.

Most of this post mis-characterizes the situation. Grub does not get overwritten : This part is true.

The files that grub (or lilo or Windows boot manager - not Kubuntu or Windows) uses to boot do not reside in the MBR so they are not overwritten. What is overwritten is the MBR bootstrap code which points the BIOS to the bootloader or in older "conventional" systems, tells it to scan the VBR (volume boot record) of the designated "bootable" partition. A "register" usually refers for small reserved memory segments, not hard drive data.

In any case, the Windows boot manager installer will overwrite the bootstrap portion of the MBR when Windows is installed. To recover access to any other boot loader, re-installing the necessary MBR bootstrap code is necessary. If you are using (K)Ubuntu newer than 9.04, this is done with the grub-install utility.

Obviously, if you can only boot to Windows you can't run grub-install. You need only boot to a liveCD or USB, mount the partition containing the grub files, run the utility as exampled below, and reboot.

How to: Re-install Grub bootstrap code to the Master Boot Record

Assuming your booting hard drive is /dev/sda and linux install is /dev/sda2 (and /boot is inclusive, not on a separate partition):

Boot to liveCD/USB.
Open a terminal.
Create a mount point and mount /boot/grub:

sudo mkdir /mnt/install
sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/install/boot/grub
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/install/boot/grub /dev/sda

Reboot.

You should now be back at your grub menu. Once you've booted into your linux install, I suggest re-running grub-install and update-grub because it's likely your installed version of grub is slightly newer than the one on your liveCD/USB.

My preferred method when installing multiple OS's is to pre-partition the hard drive before installing anything; install Windows first, then install Kubuntu and whatever other linux's (linuii? linuxen? ) you want. In fact, if you install in reverse order (least important linux first) your last linux OS should install it's bootloader (usually grub) code to the MBR and leave you where you want to be.

Most modern distro's allow you to not install a bootloader's code to the MBR as an option (except Windows of course) so this can be mostly avoided.