second Linux distro on second hd

[Juan R. de Silva]

On Tue, 21 Sep 2010 03:03:09 -0400, Doug wrote:

> Is there any trick in putting a second distro (Ubuntu) on a second drive
> and booting either one with grub?
> This is an older computer with IDE drive capability only, and I don't
> want to invest a whole batch of money into it, by upgrading the mobo,
> etc., but I can probably scrounge up an old IDE drive someplace.  (I
> would not replace the PcLOs distro that I'm running on it now.)

Yes it is feasible and quite easy to do. 

While installing the second distro and asked where you want to install 
GRUB. DO NOT install it to MBR but rather point the installer to install 
GRUB on the second hard drive where you install your new distro.

After completed boot into your first distro and edit its menu.lst file to 
chainload your new distro from its location.

title		My Brand New Distro On Second HDD
root		(hd1,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader	+1

The only inconvenience of such configuration that after you select your 
distro at the first GRUB menu you will be brought to the second distro 
GRUB menu and will need to hit ENTER again or wait a time you specified 
in second distro menu.lst for GRUB to wait on menu. As you can guess you 
can set this time to 0 too. :-)