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Booting from two different hard drives?

C

crisscross

Golden Member
I have two hard drives with Linux loaded on one and Windows XP on the other, can i connect both of them (one as primary and two as secondary) and choose which hard drive to boot from everytime?

Is there any software which will allow me to do this?

Thanks so much
 
Yes, all versions of Linux come with a boot loader.

From what I know you install XP on the primary drive and then Install Linux on the Secondary drive. During the Linus install it will ask you if you want to overwright the primary drive or install to the secdond drive and install the bootloader. During boot you choose witch OD to boot to.
 
I have a duel boot system, but I am using Trios diskdrive selector to switch the HDs. Each of the HDs thinks it is the primary drive when selected.
 
Hi, These are two separate hard drives, and the respective OS is already installed on them so can't reformat unfortunately.. any other alternative?
 
The Trios HD selector switch I use is for pata drives would work. When I installed the each OSs I connected the drive directy to the MB and did a normal install of the OS. I then connected the HDs to the switcher with the supplied HD cables and one from the switch to the motherboard.

In your case are you trying to transplant harddrives with OS aready installed?
 
If each HD does not need to know about the other, just disable the one you do not need via your bios.
 
If you just boot linux, install LILO, set it up to recognize both OSes, and install LILO to your MBR you'll be fine. I current boot Windows of my primary HDD and Linux off my slave.
 
Originally posted by: crisscross
I have two hard drives with Linux loaded on one and Windows XP on the other, can i connect both of them (one as primary and two as secondary) and choose which hard drive to boot from everytime?

Is there any software which will allow me to do this?

Thanks so much
Click to expand...

normally you would set it up on the install. either lilo or grub.
I suppose there is a way to edit them after the fact though.
Another way might be a partition on the linux drive with a second distro as you went through the install the bootloader would detect the other two
 
Originally posted by: daniel49
Originally posted by: crisscross
I have two hard drives with Linux loaded on one and Windows XP on the other, can i connect both of them (one as primary and two as secondary) and choose which hard drive to boot from everytime?

Is there any software which will allow me to do this?

Thanks so much
Click to expand...

normally you would set it up on the install. either lilo or grub.
I suppose there is a way to edit them after the fact though.
Another way might be a partition on the linux drive with a second distro as you went through the install the bootloader would detect the other two
Click to expand...


Doing it post install just involves booting to Linux with bootdisks and mounting your root partition manually ie passing root = /dev/hdb2 or whatever so that your computer knows where to boot from. After it boots, just configure LILO, this should be preinstalled with most distro's .. once the conf is edited all you gotta do is run it and you're good to go.
 
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