Hi,

Could someone help me with this, please? I have two hard dives in my machine and when I installed Ubuntu I installed it on the second, D: , hard drive, which was empty, because I was afraid that I might lose data if I installed it on C: which contains Windows XP Pro SP2. I don't know much (I.E nothing) about partitions and altering them so I thought that installing Ubuntu in this way would be a 'safe bet'

I recently had a power supply failure in the machine with two HDs and took the C: drive out to use in a similar machine while the previous one had a new power supply installed. After I first installed the HD, the machine would not boot, but after switching it off and then on again it did.

After returning the HD to the original machine it no longer offers the option of booting into Windows or Ubuntu. How can I get my dual booting back so that the D: drive will operate with Ubuntu? According to Lavalys Everest Home edition the D: drive still contains 2 Linux partitions

It sounds like you only need to reinstall the bootloader. The most convenient tool for the not-so-experienced user is probably the Super Grub Disk:

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

When you first installed Ubuntu on the second drive, did you place grub on that drive or did you install it to the first drive MBR master boot record? Did you have to map the windows drive in your grubs menu.lst? If you mapped the windows drive then I would guess that the second drive was listed first in boot order in the bios. In that case you would need to go into your bios and make the second drive first in boot order.

Also are the drives IDE or SATA? If they are sata when you removed the drive, did you remove the cable from the motherboard or just unplug the drive its self? If it was the first then you need to make sure it is plugged into the same spot it was to start with. The same goes for IDE, if your pc has drive specific cable, (If the cable has Master and Slave written on it) then make sure the drive is returned to the same spot on the cable.

hi mrrangerman and pinniped,

Thanks for your messages and sorry to be so long replying - I have been away from home for a few days.

In answer to your questions, mrrangerman, I assume that grub was installed on the first drive. I installed Ubuntu from a live CD and said it was to be installed on the second (D: ) drive. The installation process did not mention anything about where it was putting grub. It did a guided install on the whole D: drive.

The drives are IDE and the C: drive was returned to the machine that needed the new power supply and plugged in using the same cable that it had originally. There was no trouble with Windows booting, it was just that I no longer have the option to boot into Ubuntu. When the machine went for repair I took out the Ubuntu drive as well as the C: drive so it won't have become corrupted. I replaced it as it had been before.

I had a look at the web site that you mentioned, pinniped, but I have to confess that (at the moment, anyway) I do not know what to download or what to do with whatever I download but I haven't yet had time to digest it properly yet.

Hi pinniped,

I have 'fallen at the first hurdle'; I downloaded a file called

auto_super_grub_disk_1.5.exe

onto my Windows machine and double clicked on it and got a typically Microsoft bit of helpfulness

I got a message that said "This needs to be opened with an application. Send to: ". I had no idea what application was needed or where to send it so I downloaded a similar file from another location :

auto_super_grub_disk_1.0.exe

and this one ran OK but wanted to know about the Kernel, Initrd and Options. Presumably the kernel and initrd are on the drive that contains Ubuntu but Windows can't "see" the drive anymore as it is now formatted as a Linux file system.

I was going to try and re-install Ubuntu from the live CD but don't really want to do that because there have been quite a few updates since I installed it and they would be overwritten.

Ok, If Ubuntu installed Grub to the MBR of the second drive do this, go into your BIOS there should be a setting to chose HD boot order (It will be in the same section as the standard boot order). Pick the second HD to be first in boot order.

I have a multi boot system running two SATA drives configured in a RAID-0 with windows and then two scsi drives one with Debian on it and the other with Gentoo. Because I wanted to keep windows for gamming and wanted to keep it on a RAID-0 I had to install Debian on a separate drive. The drive with Debian on it has to be the first in boot order as that drive has grub install to the MBR. Then in the Grub menu.lst I had to map the windows drive to the first drive in the RAID-0 setup as that drive has the MBR on it for windows. Any time I pull my scsi drives for testing and boot back into my windows side, by default the bios will put the windows HD's to be first in boot order. So when I reinstall the scsi drives I reselect the debian drive to be first in HD boot order and I'm good to go. So, long story short it sound like that's what you need to do.