Ubuntu

How can I install Linux on an extra hard drive?

Asked by Paul C

I have a PC with Vista installed on it. I also have 2 hard drives left over from a PC building project I scrapped. If I install one of them into my current PC, how would I put Ubuntu onto the second hard drive? Also, would the two hard drives be able to share data? I've heard something about Samba though I'm not exactly sure on what it does. Any help would be appreciated.

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Francisco Athens (freelikegnu) said : 		#1

When you install from the CD (Live or alternate) you are given able to chose to which drive or partition. You have the most control with the "Manual Partitioning" option. Your windows partiton will be detected and you will have the option to boot from it when you start your computer after install is complete. However, GRUB (the bootloader) will install itself on the Master Boot Record of the main drive. This means that GRUB will give you a menu to chose Windows on that drive or Ubuntu on the other drive. If you later remove that drive, then you will receive errors if you try to boot to Ubuntu.

Take a look at the following:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation

theres an explanation of the boot process here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Booting

more info on dual booting Windows and Ubuntu:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

get some understanding of how this works so you can feel confidant when you decide to install...
it's really less complicated than it may appear at first...

best of luck!

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Wrwrwr (wrwrwr) said : 		#2

Putting grub in the master boot record of the main hard drive and later removing ubuntu will make your vista unbootable (grub requires at least a small partition with /boot to work at all). This is easy to fix if you have vista disk, and somewhat harder if you don't have it, using third-party tools.

So you may want to:
- Plug off vista disk and install ubuntu to the spare one, you would choose a system to boot using bios boot order. (You can set up grub later on any disk you choose.)

- When installing use advanced options to install grub to the master record of the second drive. And again use boot order to choose system,

- Do a standard installation and never remove ubuntu ;) Just be sure to choose the right disk when installing ubuntu, so it won't overwrite your vista.

Under ubuntu you'll be most likely able to use all disks, partitions without any set up (vista can't read linux partitions however). Samba is used to share data across local network with windows machines, no need for it on one machine.

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