Benzin
Member
+576|6255
I've installed Ubuntu on my desktop alongside Windows 7 (each OS is on a separate drive), I seem to have run into a small problem.

Let me start with what I did:
- Unplugged 1TB drive from the PSU, BIOS was not seeing my formatted (and thus empty) 500GB drive and I couldn't put it into the boot order at all with the 1TB turned on.
- Loaded up the boot CD and was able to install Ubuntu 10.1 on my 500GB drive.
- Did a bit of configuring, shut my PC off and plugged my 1TB (with Windows 7) drive back in. I tried to see if I could now see my Ubuntu drive in BIOS but nothing is there - just the Windows drive is in the list of available drives to boot from (along with DVD-ROM and USB).

This is where I've run into my problem. What I want is to have a nice GRUB boot menu at the start like any other dual-boot system but just have the two operating systems on separate drives altogether. I did it this way because I was having issues with the advanced partition menu on the boot CD so just went ahead and followed the KISS method by unplugging the Windows drive.

I was told by a friend that if I put my Ubuntu drive into the first position in my boot order and the Windows drive in the second, then I could boot into Ubuntu and run a GRUB update command (he told me to google it) and that would create the necessary GRUB that had the entries for Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

Both operating systems are 64-bit, I imagine that might make a difference in whatever help you guys can offer me. I love the hell out of both OS's and want to be able to use them interchangeably. I'm not an entire Linux newb, but I'm also not an advanced user at all, so please keep that in mind, some things I may need spelled out for me.
Camm
Feeding the Cats.
+761|5225|Dundee, Scotland.
No idea man, I installed them alongside each other on my laptop, so I have the GRUB boot menu. Your friend saying put the ubuntu drive into the primary boot position sounds like a good idea.
for a fatty you're a serious intellectual lightweight.
Benzin
Member
+576|6255
Got it working.

The problem was that my boot order menu was only giving me the option of 3 potential boot devices and out of those 3, only ONE of them could be a HDD (ASUS motherboard). In another menu on the same page that I constantly overlooked, there was an option to specify the boot priority of the two hard drives. Changed them around and I went back to the main boot order menu (confused, yet?) and was now able to select the Ubuntu drive as an available device to boot from (but now the Windows HDD wasn't showing). Restarted the computer from BIOS and booted straight into Ubuntu.

Went into the terminal and put in the command

Code:

sudo update-grub
and it found the Windows installation on the other drive. Restarted the computer and the Grub2 menu came up and gave me all of the boot options and Windows 7 was there. No worries now.

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