dual boot (vista & ubuntu)
ubuntu on external USB harddrive
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 by werewolf | Discussion: Personal Computing
Hi all,
I have Vista installed to boot on my C: drive. I installed Ubuntu on my external USB harddrive and as long as the external is on, my GRUB loader comes up correctly.
The thing is that I don't want to leave my USB drive turned on all the time. I would like to be able to turn it off, but still get the boot loader. I get "Error 21" if the drive is turned off.
I believe that the loader is actually on the USB drive. I have not figured out how to move it to the Vista boot partition. This is a Dell machine, so there is that little hidden partition to deal with, but I believe that the boot part is HD0,2
I have the following in my menu.lst:
### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below
## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs
.....i deleted lines for brevity .....
## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=/dev/sdc5 ro <--------------------------------- I added this line
## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd2,4) <--------------------------------- I added this line. this is where ubuntu is installed
This is the Vista load entry:
# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda3
title Windows Vista (loader)
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
I guess I have to figure out how to move the grub to hd0,2
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks,
David
Reply #2 Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:10 PM
Okay...back to the forums...thanks and GOOD LUCK on the finals 
and just to be clear, I think I need to move the grub from the USB drive to the Vista drive. Not just install a new grub on the Vista.
Reply #3 Thursday, June 18, 2009 12:58 AM
That's why I don't use boot managers anymore.
Now, if I install another OS to a separate drive, I disconnect any other drive with an OS installed on it first.
Then all I have to do is change the boot order in the BIOS to choose which one I boot to.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:09 PM
I had the same issue, but I cannot remember what I did to fix it. Try searching the Ubuntu Forums, I think thats where I found the fix for this. If I find it i will post it here for you but you might want to yourself because I'm in the middle of taking my finals. But If i remember you have to have the boot loader moved to the boot drive... (usually where ever C is located)...
The reason why I don't remember the fix is because I recently reinstalled Windows and Ubuntu and set aside a 25GB partition for it and dual booted that way...