I have a new build with two drives. Sda is a sata drive with XP, my linux swap and some storage partitions. Sdb is a SSD with my linux root and home on it.

Before I completed the system build I had just the SSD in there and an LXDE linux for testing hardware.

After completing build with addition of the large hard disk and installing windows to it and my full linux OS on the SSD, I miss how fast the system would boot when it just consisted of the SSD. Booting off the sata seems so slow in comparison though linux loads very quickly of course.

Is it possible at this point to make the SSD the boot drive and chainload XP from a new grub install on the SSD's boot sector? I am using Grub (legacy) installed to the MBR of the windows disk right now. Thinking I could go in with a live CD after swapping the drive order in the bios. Is this feasible? Probably linux will behave though not sure how XP will feel about it. It doesn't see the SSD of course, at least not in windows so would it even know?

Oddly, I don't mind reinstalling linux if necessary, this install is young and my data separate. I know I would need to edit fstab for new order of drives but even if if it goes badly, any flavor of linux only takes me about an hour to install LOL but I rather not go through a weekend ordeal of reinstalling XP.

Modern systems have a bios that can select which disk is the first in the boot chain. I almost always use it to select the disk I wish to use instead of any other dual boot. It makes swapping disks or adding easier to me.

If your system was stopped with a full install of linux to the ssd then just swap the order either in bios or at boot time from a boot menu choice.

That is what I am going to do. Not sure if there is anything I need to change in the linux install besides fstab, grub I will do fresh. Going to try it out this weekend and will post back the results.

What I understand is that you have a complete linux install that was OK. You then added in a drive as first boot order and installed windows on it. Is that correct? If so then I assume that the original linux was untouched and just by changing the bios order the linux should boot just as it used to. sda and sdb would be swapped in this instance.

No, my full linux install came after the boot/windows drive was installed in system. I had just been testing the new hardware with only the SSD in the box and was very impressed with a temporary install minimal linux distro to test that hardware. Once all my hardware checked out OK, I threw in the mechanical drive (sda), installed XP on it (day long ordeal that wiped me out for most of the weekend LOL) and put in a 64 bit version of my usual linux distro on the SSD (sdb).

Current linux's swap is on the mechanical drive (sda something partition) and legacy grub is installed in boot sector of the mechanical drive (hd0). For linux, just root and home are on the SSD (sdb1).

I need to switch around the disks in BIOS, boot to a live CD and install grub to the boot sector of the SSD - then hopefully point it to root on the SSD after also editing the fstab. If I have to will just reinstall linux fresh and then see if I can sort XP.

I thought I could be happy booting off the mechanical drive and using the SSD just for running linux. But that day of booting on the SSD really spoiled me. It was fast. Me like ;-)

"and put in a 64 bit version of my usual linux distro on the SSD"

OK, so this may be an issue or not actually. You'd have to check how grub and fstab are set for that drive. UUID should be fine since it says something like /dev/disk-by-id/103-rw55i823-593- or such.

We can kind of assume that grub isn't on the ssd. What I wonder about is how much you have on the mechanical drive? That may explain how or why it is so seemingly slow. Not sure I know what your disto is either. I wonder that the installer did allow you or you did install such and odd setup.

At this point it may just be easier to swap and reload and be done with it. You don't have anything to loose by trying to move it all around either.

The mechanical drive is just slow because it is a mechanical drive compared to an SSD (pretty sure it is a 5400rpm too) XP is freshly loaded this last weekend and it has the linux swap partition on it.

It probably would be easier to start again, linux is a cinch to install but I was hoping to avoid having to reinstall XP, it is an entire day of feeding it drivers and rebooting.

Is it worth it to save maybe a minute of boot time?

A geek never seems to account for time like that. Logic tends to be useless in this case. You and everyone here will do what they want to do.

You can ntbackup xp and restore it easily enough.

Well Jefro, I decided to pass on the swaparoo just to save what amounts to probably a minute or less.

My current setup suffices and I am having no trouble trying out some other distros as well. The setup may be a little strange but I had reasons for my madness.

1st drive is a mechanical 500GB SATA that has the Windows XP on it because XP is not nice to SSDs and since I am not in windows enough hardly to justify its existence at all, was not gonna be on my SSD. Grub is installed in the mbr of that mechanical drive. I also have an 8GB linux swap on the mechanical disk because I couldn't see using up precious gigs of my little SSD for something I don't think I have ever used but you are supposed to have just in case. I have two larger ext4 partitions on it to play with other distros.

The SSD is small, just 60GB and holds my main linux. I also had a small partition on it for trying out lighter weight linux distros in 64bit flavors to see just how snappy they can be (my main is a 32bit KDE heavy flavor but I like my eye candy). That partition was too small for anything but the lightest ones so I think I am going to just merge it with the main linux and do all my experimenting on the mechanical disk from now on. And better to not be formatting too often on the SSD either.

When I install distros to try out I put their grubs on their root partitions. So far everything I have been trying out has Grub 2 while my main distro is still legacy grub. Therefore I have been using stanza like:
title test of 64 KDE
kernel (hd0,X)/boot/grub/core.img

And it has worked well. I have found using chainloader to not work well. For me anyway.