How to install UBUNTU on second SATA hard drive?

farhadfm · 07-16-2008, 11:28 PM

Hi,
I am totally new to linux world and know nothing about it.
I have laptop with two SATA hard drive (which I can to boot from either one). So I do not need to install any boot loader.

I tried to install ubuntu on second hard drive with automatic partitioning and it did not work.

Could some body please help me step by step with how to install ubuntu on second SATA drive without touching the first hard drive which contains vista.

jschiwal · 07-17-2008, 12:23 AM

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Bo...NTLDR)_and_why

This link may help you out. You can use the ntldr to chainload linux just like you did in XP. There isn't a boot.ini file by default, but you can create one and vista will use it. So you can follow the instructions on this link:
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux...w2k-HOWTO.html

When you install Ubuntu, create the boot loader on the mbr of the 2nd disk or on your root partition (/) of the second disk. Also, don't format the disk before the installation, so that Vista will ignore it for the present. Let the installer do the partitioning and formating.

If you have had only one disk, it would be best to let vista reduce the size of the disk. Unfortunately Vista is very greedy for disk space. I just got a new laptop with vista pre-installed. I don't see many of the problems others are complaining about (like UAC) but when I went to reduce the size of the 200GB disk, Vista could only spare 80GB!. It might be very optimistic about restore points, maybe.