Booting

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 30 Dec 2007, 17:38

ok so i have installed linux on my secondary hardrive and i had my primary hard drive unplugged becouse people where saying that ubuntu instalation partitioner was dangerous i didint want to lose all of my data durring instalation it had windows on it and now when both of my hard drivers are connected i dont get the OS select list any ideas

Post by **ayu** » 30 Dec 2007, 17:51

When installing Linux you have to install it AFTER windows because windows doesn't support the listing of Linux distros in the boot list. And when you install Linux after Windows, Linux changes the boot menu and installs GRUB which indeed does support the listing of windows.

When you unplugged the windows drive it could not write to the boot table on the main drive. And when you plugged the main one in again it would still have the windows boot table and use that one, thus not detecting the Linux distro and list it.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 31 Dec 2007, 04:43

Ok thanks then i will have to reinstall it with plugged in main drive.

G-Brain · Post by **G-Brain** » 31 Dec 2007, 11:13

cats wrote:Linux changes the boot menu and installs GRUB which indeed does support the listing of windows.

Boot loaders (with any decent distribution) are a choice, not a necessity. Just figured I'd point that out...