want to access my internal hardrive from Ubuntu which is on the external Please Help and Thankyou in Advance

Congrats and welcome to the linux-land, especially to the Ubuntu corner. i hope you enjoy it as much as most of us have but it is a steep lean=rning curve especially with getting all the tricky stuff at the start.

The Wubi install that you have done is not a full proper install of Ubuntu and relies heavily on Windows systems all working perfectly. It's good for visiting Ubuntu as a tourist but sounds like you are ready to settle in and get an apartment.

Xp and Ubuntu combine excellently well in a full proper dual-boot system. Here are 2 pages to skim through but don't get too bogged down in the details, the 2nd link assumes you only have 1 drive whereas you have 2 so that should make it easier for you.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

This next link is the guide to "migrating" your Ubuntu Wubui onto its own partition and it sounds like the external drive might be a good place for it
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide#How%20do%20I%20migrate%20to%20a%20real%20partition,%20and/or%20get%20rid%20of%20Windows%20entirely?

It just so happens that this week DistroWatch has had an article going into a lot of detail about the background to the guide there. It seems a lot more people have enjoyed the article than have actually read it lol ;) I've only included it here to be scary and make it look like i know what's in it. It's a bit too techie for me tho and the above link is all you need
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090309#feature

Linux's like "ext3" "primary partitions" rather than "ntfs" "logical" ones buried inside an "extended partition" which is what Windows tries to set up for us. Note that Ubuntu only really needs 8Gb but that is cutting it too fine and 15Gb is much better for it. Ubuntu can read Windows stuff on Windows partitions but Windows gets a bit blind so i tend to keep my data on the Windows side of a dual-boot so that both sides are fairly happy.

Blimey, i guess i'm not such a noob anymore :( A lot of this wouldn't have made any sense to me a month or so ago so please ask questions
Sorry for the long post
Regards from
Tom :)

That's great thanks i really appreciate you help but i'm still a little confused, i dont want to create a partition (do i)

i want XP on the internal hard drive (which it currently is) and Ubuntu on the external so i was thinking of doing this

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_linux_and_windows_xp_linux_installed_first.htm

well firstly i would uninstall Ubuntu from add and remove programs which would uninstall the whole of Ubuntu and then boot of the disk hopefully giving my that screen and hopefully giving my the option to install too the external

What are your thoughts guys, is there an easier way, does this let me do what i want?

**
well firstly i would uninstall Ubuntu from add and remove programs which would uninstall the whole of Ubuntu and then boot of the Ubuntu LIVE disk i created hopefully giving my that screen which says install Ubuntu and hopefully giving my the option to install too the external

What are your thoughts guys, is there an easier way, does this let me do what i want?

**

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_windows_xp_and_linux_xp_installed_first.htm

that one sorry and thanks

**

That sounds like a good approach, except that when choosing a partition you don't need/want to resize your Windows partition, but select the external disk instead.
You should also remove the "Ubuntu installation" in Windows before you start, and backup anything that's left on your external drive and that you want to keep (in case there was more on it than just Ubuntu).
If all works well, you should end up with a similar dual-boot menu, Ubuntu installed on your external drive (but this time in a native environment), and Ubuntu should automatically have your Windows partition made accessible.

Note that you will no longer be able to read your external disk in Windows. Ubuntu can read/write Windows partitions, but not the other way round. If that is not what you want, you might want to keep everything as it is now, and we can fix the problem how to access your windows disk from within Ubuntu instead (which is just a minor tweak).

thats no good, i want to be able to access my external in windows (from the internal) while ubuntu is on the external.

i did what i was going to do however it means that ubuntu's GRUB loader is on the external and so the boot menu will only appear when its plugged in. now i am planning to do it all again and use bootitng to reset my MRB's. what ill do:

1. install Ubuntu from the live disk onto my external.

2. reset the MRB's on both my internal and external to launch from the internal first, as the external is not always plugged in.

3. create a boot manager that will allow me to boot into what ever system i want.

4. Hopefully reseting or even recreating the externals MRB will allow me to access it from Windows

5. reset my name as i dont think i can call my self ml noobie anymore ;) :) :) ;) (how do i do that lol)

Wouldn't it be easier to have the dual boot menu always in place, but default to windows, so if you want to Linux you can select that from within the boot menu?

Concerning accessing the Linux partition - why whould you want to do that from within windows? You certainly don't need access to the Ubuntu system files, as you don't have use for them in Windoze. If you want access to your personal files you use/create in Ubuntu, the easiest and safest way would be to store those not on the Ubuntu partition, but on the Windows partition (you can for example create a link to them in you Ubuntu home).

Apparently there *are* some tools to access ext2/ext3 partitions from within Windows (see http://www.howtoforge.com/access-linux-partitions-from-windows and http://www.it.fht-esslingen.de/~zimmerma/software/ltools.html ), but I'd strongly advise against using them, since a) they circumvent any security Linux gives you (and passing that to a per defition inherently insecure Windows is a very bad idea), b) the ones that also give you write access will force a time consuming file system check each time windows crashes and might corrupt your file system, and they ignore the journaling of ext3 file systems (the default Linux file system).

Concerning the dual boot menu to start up on the internal, i think its a good idea and i think ill create it with bootitng unless you can suggest an easier way or better program.

And concerning accessing the Linux partition from the internal, i wanted to store all my music and movie files onto the external and even install a few programs into that location to make my PC run faster, although it already is pretty quick ;)

I was thinking i would create a partition on the external and install Ubuntu to a small part of it and have it access the other part of it via the link. This would also theoretically allow me to access the external as that could remain a normal partition (FAT32 i think).

ill definitely take on your advise about accessing ext2/3 partitions from within windows. you've helped a lot and thank you very much so far.

Lastly what about the name change?

Well, in that case the only reasonable approach is, to create two partitions on the external disk: a large one which can be either ntfs or fat32, and a smaller one (but >=10GB) where you can install Ubuntu on. In your Linux home directory (which will also be on the smaller one) you can then create links to anywhere you like.
You won't need to access the Linux partition from within Windows then (and I did advise *against* using these tools ;-) ), and you can access the larger partition where you store your stuff regularly with both Windows and Ubuntu.

re the name change: I have no idea.

Thats Great!! It means we have the same idea about how to get around this issue which is good

however one last thing i install Ubuntu onto my external via my laptop however it then gives me the Ubuntu dual boot menu and when the external is not plugged in ( which is 95% of the time) i gives me an error and i have to use the external to boot up into Windows. I would like it to give me the option without the external needing to be plugged in that's why i wanted to use BOOTITNG, also i want the dual boot menu of my Main PC the one that has the external plugged in all the time.

P.S name change????

(was thinking of just installing via my Main PC but then how do i get the dual boot menu on my laptop?)

by the way thank you guys soo much

hey just wanted to reopen this bacuse i want some info still on what i said 2 hoursa ago thanks

Currently your GRUB is installed on the MBR (master boot record) of the primary harddisk. Generally, the best solution in your case is to:
- Install GRUB not on the MBR of the internal disk, but on the external disk.
- Select the boot order in your BIOS to boot from your external disk *first*
- Run the command "fixmbr" from windows (should exist somewhere, probably on the windows CD). This will reclaim the MBR for windows so that your machine will boot directly to windows

So if your external disk is plugged in, BIOS will boot from it, find GRUB, and give you the dual boot menu.
If it is not plugged in, BIOS will boot normally from your internal disk, which now only contains the windows boot loader.