ubuntu-users Digest, installing Ubuntu on Sata raid 0 with win XP

James Wilkinson ubuntu at westexe.demon.co.uk
Mon May 23 22:21:42 UTC 2005


Colin McDermott wrote:
> I have a friend who has two Sata Hard Drives set in a raid 0 format with 
> windows XP on it.

Rather him than me! (And I'm not just talking about XP: in my
experience, there's just too much to go wrong with RAID 0).

>  He was going to put in another ide drive and install 
> Ubuntu onto it. The problem is that Grub does not detect the Windows 
> install and I am not sure how to configure grub to pick it up.

So Windows would be on SATA, and Ubuntu on parallel IDE.

> The Mainboard is an Albatron  
> http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/mb/specification.asp?pro_id=82#
> 
> Is there any way to tell Grub that a windows installation is on the raid 
> hdd.

I'm not sure: I haven't got the hardware.  But it might be worth trying
putting this in /boot/grub/menu.lst:
title           Windows XP
root            (hdn,0)
savedefault
chainloader     +1

where the n in (hdn,0) could be 0 or 1.

Other thoughts: is there any way to tell his BIOS to boot from SATA
first, or to boot from IDE first? If so, he could install Grub to the
IDE drive's MBR to load Ubuntu, and the SATA RAID array's MBR to boot
XP. And switch the setting in the BIOS as appropriate...

(Most of this advice assumes that he can install grub to which partition
or MBR he wants. The Ubuntu installer is certainly capable of that: I
seem to remember choosing advanced mode when the installer got to
talking about bootloaders. The IDE disk will almost certainly be
/dev/hda).

He might want to investigate bootpart, or some other program that will
copy the Ubuntu bootloader onto the RAID array, and set it to chainload
from the XP loader. So you'd boot, get the XP loader menu, and choose
Ubuntu. Then you'd see the Ubuntu menu.

(At a pinch, you can do this with the Ubuntu dd command to copy 512
bytes from wherever you installed the first part of Grub's bootloader to
a file, and a line like this:
C:\bootsect.lnx="Ubuntu"
in C:\boot.ini).

He will almost certainly want to have a boot CD in case anything goes
badly wrong.

> Please reply to my own address as well as the list (as I try to keep up 
> with the list but often fail).

Reply-To set accordingly.

This e-mail is something of a summary of his options: he or you may well
want to reply to ask for more information on a point. That's fine and
expected, but can those replies go to the list? (That's nearly always
the right thing, anyway).

Hope this helps,

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | realise that you are in a hurry.




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