[ubuntu-uk] Two operating systems

[Keith Powell]

Keith Powell wrote:
> For some time now, I have had two hard drives, each in its own plug-in
> mobile hard drive caddy. One has XP on it (which I still need :-( and
> the other has Ubuntu on it. So I have just plugged in whichever OS I
> wanted.
> 
> I'm thinking of doing away with the hard drive caddies and installing
> both drives inside the computer. For ease, XP would remain on its
> existing drive and be plugged into the 'master' plug on the ribbon
> cable. The Ubuntu drive would be plugged into the 'slave' plug on the
> IDE ribbon cable. Ubuntu would probably be a reinstall on a new, larger
> hard drive, but I've not decided yet.
> 
> I see that, if I press F8 during the BIOS boot, I can select what I boot
> from (different DVD drives or different hard drives). Selecting the
> appropriate hard drive from F8, I think, would be better than messing
> about setting GRUB up for dual booting. (Something which I don't know
> how to do at the moment!) It would mean that I don't have to do anything
> to the XP drive.
> 
> Is what I want to do, using F8 feasible, or would I be better setting
> GRUB up?

Thank you all for your prompt replies and the help.

I was rather scared of doing anything which may adversely affect the XP 
drive, such as installing GRUB on it, as I didn't want to go to the 
palava of having to reinstall Windows.

Now, having read your replies, I'm confident of having the two drives 
internally and selecting them with GRUB. I'll do it over the week-end.

Thanks again.

Cheers

Keith