On 11/27/07, norman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 22:37 +0000, alan c wrote: > > norman wrote: > > > I am thinking of adding a second hard drive to my PC on which I would > > > have Windows for those very few occasions when I need it, like playing > > > Bridge with my brother. Assuming that is possible what snags should I be > > > aware of please? > > > > If you have just ubuntu on it at present, and then install windows > > later, wherever, I think all you have to do is re install grub using a > > live CD and a cli grub sequence in order to reinstate grub after > > windows installer has overwritten the master boot record. If you do > > not do this, ubuntu will not normally be available from a boot up menu > > (grub) > > Perhaps I was not clear enough. I do not intend to install Windows on > the same drive as Ubuntu but on another drive. I understand about one of > the drives being master and the other slave but does it matter which is > which? > > Norman > > > -- > ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk > https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/ >
One of your drives will contain the Master Book Record (or MBR) this is the bit which tells your computer what to load at start up. If you install Windows onto a seperate hard drive it overwrites the MBR so that only Windows will boot. To fix this you have to boot into a live cd, and then get grub to reinstall the MBR so that you can boot from either PC. Some computers allow you to select the device you boot from when you switch it on (on my HP machine you push F6 I think and it gives you a list of drives), however most I have played this don't let you do that. Before I switched entirely to linux, I had several machines that where dual boots, with windows on one hd and linux on a seperate hd. The MBR thing can be a pain, but if you follow the Grub instructions someone else gave you when you had a previous windows problem (with your daughter/grand daughters machine?) this should allow you to replace grub after installing windows on your other hd. It's a bit confusing (confused the hell out of me for a while) but that's the way it is, unfortunatley. Hope that helps a little...... -Matt Daubney -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
