Dual Boot Idea

slappycakes · 10-13-2003, 10:47 PM

Thought I would share this...

I wanted to dual boot between Windoz and Linux but didn't want the hassle of boot loaders and such. So I bought a PCI IDE controller and a new hard drive. Installed Linux on the PCI hard drive, windoz on the on-board hard drive.

When I want to boot to Linux I change the bios to boot from the PCI controller, when I want to boot to windoz I change the bios to the on-board IDE controller.

Works for me although it requires a little more money than the single hard drive / boot loader option.

If this helps anyone--cool.

Slappy

poisonousmist · 10-14-2003, 08:06 AM

Buying a new hard drive, and installing it on the main board, would do just the same. And switch the BIOS settings between HDD-0 and HDD-1, but in my opinion that is inconvient. LONG LIVE LILO

guygriffiths · 10-15-2003, 07:25 AM

Sounds like a fair bit of hassle, when you could install both on the same drive, set the most common one to boot, and then use a boot disk for the other.

michaelk · 10-15-2003, 08:33 AM

If it works for you... and if you don't switch OS's very often.

Create a boot floppy disk using mkbootdisk that will boot linux with out the need for installing a bootloader. Its slower then a bootloader due to the speed of the floppy but less hassle then changing the BIOS everytime.

slappycakes · 10-16-2003, 04:35 PM

You know I just installed Slack and am doing that right now. LILO didn't install properly or doesn't being on the PCI controller so I use a boot disk.

Anyway, I posted this because I had never seen anyone do this, thought it would help someone.

Cheer