Installing Ubuntu 9.10 side by side (twice), on different hard disks

Goh Lip g.lip at gmx.com
Tue Nov 10 18:12:00 UTC 2009


Ioannis Vranos wrote:
> I have a system with 2 hard disks. I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 x64 on
> the first hard disk, and I want to have a second installation of it on
> the second hard disk.
> 
> 
> The problem is that when I install it on the second hard disk, it
> installs GRUB on the MBR of the first hard disk (erasing access to the
> Ubuntu 9.10 installation in the first hard disk), and does not install
> GRUB on the MBR of the second hard disk, where the installation takes
> place.
> 
> 
> How can I have two installations of Ubuntu on two separate hard disks
> with the equivalent two GRUB installations on the MBRs of the two hard
> disks?

At installation to the second drive, there is an advanced button, just 
after selecting your partition to install, to select where you want to 
install your grub to. Select 'sdb'. (later, you'll get a warning "that 
is a bad thing to do")

Now since you can now boot to ubuntu on second hard drive, to make sure 
you have the mbr on both, at terminal


sudo grub-install --root-directory=/dev/sdax /dev/sda
sudo grub-install /dev/sdb

and sdax (substitute 'x' with real number), is partition on sda where 
you installed your boot of first hard disk.


Good luck.

Regards,
Goh Lip





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