I wish to install Mandrivea on a USB Harddrive. I am currently dual booting XP and Mandriva 2010 on a Vaio Laptop. Mandriva wants to either:
1. Install the boot sector to the USB harddrive.

Or

2. Overwrite the current boot sector on my laptop. If I choose number two, would I still have the option to dual boot OR choose the USB drive;
Or would I only be able to boot the USB drive only? Number two is the obvious choice, but I don't want to loose perfectly operating OS on my laptop.

Adriann

hi

I am not sure if Mdv 2010 uses grub or gru2.

1) What bootloader is in your laptop MBR?

2) leaping ahead....I would allow it to install into the mbr of the usb device...if that is an option?

3) leaping ahead...if not possible the root partition (meaning the boot partition) of the usb install

4) Ideally grub (1/2) should be in the MBR of laptop
after installing usb system....ignore its bootloader

instead edit the linux laptop menu.lst to include an entry for the usb or add a chainloader to menu.lst

b) if its grub2....grub2 will detect other systems and add entries to your grub.cfg....but you will need to do a reboot with usb inserted and run update-grub for the os-prober to do its job.

5) Does this usb drive intend to go to other computers?

Hi Aus9!

Thanks for the quick reply! I'll get back to you on your questions. Just powered up the laptop to check email and then off to bed.

Adriann