PCFormat Forum Archive

Hey guys,
I recently joined up here after getting back into the PC scene..so now I'm hoping the Linux people are as friendly and helpful as I've heard
I have a pc with two hard drives, the primary HDD is running Vista. I recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 on the secondary drive. Now the problem is I don't know how to set it to dualboot. When I start the pc with both drives plugged in, it automatically boots to Vista. If I want to use Ubuntu I have to boot from CD, which is abit of an inconvenience. I've read some how -to's and it sounds like I have to first boot into Ubuntu and then change something that should give me a dualboot option when starting my pc.

Any ideas?

Did you install Ubuntu with both the HDDs plugged in?

No..I was so scared of accidentally formatting the primary drive or something I unplugged it.

Back up your primary drive and then install linux in the second one while both drives are plugged in.

Or wait for eternally knowledgeable IronOxideDog or other people with linux knowledge to help

Yeah, the reason it's not dual booting is because Linux thought there was no other OS. What you need to do (in future) is install Linux with all your HDDs plugged in, and just be sure not to format the wrong drive.

Now, however, you'll need to install GRUB. I haven't done this in ages, so I can't help, but that's what you need to do, so it's a step in the right direction

Alternatively (and this is what I would do, unless my Linux install is NOT brand new), you could just reinstall Linux

I just did the newb thing and installed it within windows .Dont know if it affects peformance

edit:That didnt sound right.Guess it's too early

Thanks everyone. Well I haven't really done anything with it yet so I could just uninstall it and reinstall with both drives. Better hope I don't partition the wrong one then

ok... i have a total noob question so noob i didnt want to start a new thread D:

i just installed debian on my nokia n900 ... where do i get software for it ? and what can i do with debian I dont know how to use linux at all so some direction into some noob guides would be nice

Appreciate it

Check this thread. http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic. ... 4#p1474294