Keith Powell wrote: > Keith Powell wrote: >> For some time now, I have had two hard drives, each in its own plug-in >> mobile hard drive caddy. One has XP on it (which I still need :-( and >> the other has Ubuntu on it. So I have just plugged in whichever OS I >> wanted. >> >> I'm thinking of doing away with the hard drive caddies and installing >> both drives inside the computer. For ease, XP would remain on its >> existing drive and be plugged into the 'master' plug on the ribbon >> cable. The Ubuntu drive would be plugged into the 'slave' plug on the >> IDE ribbon cable. Ubuntu would probably be a reinstall on a new, larger >> hard drive, but I've not decided yet. >> >> I see that, if I press F8 during the BIOS boot, I can select what I boot >> from (different DVD drives or different hard drives). Selecting the >> appropriate hard drive from F8, I think, would be better than messing >> about setting GRUB up for dual booting. (Something which I don't know >> how to do at the moment!) It would mean that I don't have to do anything >> to the XP drive. >> >> Is what I want to do, using F8 feasible, or would I be better setting >> GRUB up? > > Thank you all for your prompt replies and the help. > > I was rather scared of doing anything which may adversely affect the XP > drive, such as installing GRUB on it, as I didn't want to go to the > palava of having to reinstall Windows. > > Now, having read your replies, I'm confident of having the two drives > internally and selecting them with GRUB. I'll do it over the week-end.
The biggest risk if there is one, with a dual boot install is the possible resize of the ntfs partiton I would guess, so I always suggest scandisk well and defrag at least once if not more, to ensure tidiest hard drive, Also obviously to have a backup in case of unforseen disaster. However, if you use a second hd for ubuntu, there is very little touched on the first drive at all. So (almost) no risk to data. If you do go for a ubuntu reinstall, an easy way would be to leave a large unpartitioned space on the drive (maybe the whole drive, partitions previously deleted), if you want a semi automagical install, anyway. hth -- alan cocks Kubuntu user#10391 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/