Want to put a spare drive in my PC to boot Ubuntu. Best way?

warren_1979

warren_1979

warren_1979

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5 Jul 2005
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Hi.

I have recently been drawn to the world of Ubuntu after putting Lubuntu on my uncles XP laptop.

After thinking about buying a little netbook just to use for an Ubuntu mess about I have decided to put a spare lappy HD into my PC.

My PC has these drives:
120GB 840 Evo with Win7 and programs on it.
500GB mechanical drive with flac files on it.

So I would like to add a lappy HD on another SATA controller. Now I have terrible memories of using partition magic from years ago and corrupting my OS drive. I just don't want to mess up my Win7 SSD drive and have to re-install.

Is it as simple as disconnecting my two drives and connecting my lappy hd and installing Ubuntu. Once this is installed, reconnecting my Evo and 500GB drive and using F12 to choose my boot drive or do I need to do something else as well?

Do I need a bootmanager?

I just don't want to boot into Ubuntu and have it do something to my other drives without me knowing.

Thanks.
 
warren_1979 said:
Is it as simple as disconnecting my two drives and connecting my lappy hd and installing Ubuntu. Once this is installed, reconnecting my Evo and 500GB drive and using F12 to choose my boot drive or do I need to do something else as well?
Click to expand...

Yup. No one drive is dependant on the other then. :)
 
Don't know enough about Linux to be honest, but I doubt either drive would interfere with each other, save for the odd temporary file here and there (I know Windows has a weird habit of using other drives to save temp file when installing updates or large programs, but it always deletes them afterwards).
 
Hi.

I have since read on the web that it is a good idea to keep all drives connected during Ubuntu install. This allows Ubuntu to set a boot option in the menu if it detects another OS.

I have found a guide so I think I am sorted.

Thanks for your time mate.

Cheers.
 
The problem then is if you remove one drive, but it'll be fine if you're keeping them both connected permanently. Personally I'd just prefer to choose myself, but like I say it's down to preference. :)
 
Id say disconnect your main 2 drives when installing on your 3rd. The f12 bout method is probably the best unless you like grub.
 
There is a program called bcdedit I think that allows you to edit the windows boot menu and add the Ubuntu install into it so you don't have to do the f12 option. It worked well when I used a dual boot on my desktop with Win 7 and Pear OS.
 
korgtronix said:
There is a program called bcdedit I think that allows you to edit the windows boot menu and add the Ubuntu install into it so you don't have to do the f12 option. It worked well when I used a dual boot on my desktop with Win 7 and Pear OS.
Click to expand...

+1 for this, once managed to quad boot XP, 7, ubuntu and OSX and bcdedit was invaluable

Hawker
 
I have done this quite a few times and you will be surprised at how easy it really is.

Install your second drive and boot into windows, open up disc management and make sure that the drive has "unallocated" space, if it shows up in green as "free space" then you want to right click it and delete it, after this is will show unallocated.
Start your install of Ubuntu and when you reach the part where it asks if you want to replace windows, click the option that says "install along side windows".
From then on it is all automated, it should install Ubuntu on the second drive and will install the grub boot loader without you having to mess with it.
When you next reboot, grub will give you the option to boot to Ubuntu or Windows, if you don't choose Windows within 10 seconds, it will automatically boot to Ubuntu.

Linux will be able to access all drives, but Windows can't access Linux drives as it can't read the ext format.
 
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