GRUB and two HDs

[Dan Coutu]

On Tue, 2004-08-17 at 10:51, Ted Roche wrote:
> What's the easiest way to get it to boot to Windows if that's the only 
> drive, and give me the option if both drives are inserted? Should I use 
> parted to shrink and move the NTFS partition and create a boot 
> partition on the built-in drive, or is there a better way?
> 

What worked for me was to put the grub loader into the MBR
of the secondary disk. Then setup the BIOS to try booting
the disk in the expansion slot (the secondary disk) first
and the primary disk second.

That way if the secondary disk is present it lets you boot
either Windows or Linux. If it is not present then it will
simply boot Windows without ever giving you choice because
the MBR on the primary disk has no other options. Since
you already have grub on the primary disk you may need to
tinker. This is because it tries to read a grub.conf file
from the boot partition in order to display the available
boot options. You probably don't have a boot partition on
the primary disk and therefore it can't find the grub.conf
file. You may be best off restoring the MBR on the primary
disk to the old Windows boot loader instead.

-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/