Dual boot... kind of?

[docnascar]

I have a question.

Is it possible to have a desktop setup with two hard drives. One would have pclinux (of course) and the second would have Win-blows.

I really don't want to use grub to boot between the two. Mainly because I read too many posts about issues with dual boot systems and I don' want that hassle or risk during installs or updates between either system.

What I was thinking is to just set my bios to to tell the pc which drive to boot off of. Is that doable?

I also believe that if its set to boot from the pclinux drive that the windows drive would be accessible to read/write files across, correct? I would not expect to be able to write files from windows to linux, and thats ok. (unless there's some win software that supports linux formats, I'm not that familiar with it).

[smileeb]

I think I seen, read or heard that if you press one of the f# keys or the del key on boot up it will send you to a screen that I think if you hit esc it will let you select the item on the list to boot from. Being that not knowledgeable about this, the more proficient will give you the correct write up on how to do it.

[MCP]

I have had as many as 4 different OS's installed and managed by grub (used lilo previously) on my computer with no problems in the entire time I've been using linux, which has been about 10 years.

As for your install just install windows first on one drive then change your bios to boot from the other drive and install linux there.  Allow grub to install as it will find windows and allow you to boot to either windows or linux and grub will be installed to the mbr of the second drive.  If you experience any problems then you can go into your bios and change which is your boot drive and just use windows.

I would recommend that you allow the OS's to just install and take all the defaults, as I have not had any problems with this type of install.  Most of the messages I see reporting problems are either with non standard hardware or where the user thought they new better and tweaked the install.

You shouldn't have any problems,
MCP

[RPsx94]

I've got the exact setup that you are talking about. My computer boots to a PCLinux drive, but I have to select "Windows" from the GRUB menu when I wanna use it.

I asked on here on how to do it, and this Linux noob managed to get it to work.

[Bald Brick]

I think I seen, read or heard that if you press one of the f# keys or the del key on boot up it will send you to a screen that I think if you hit esc it will let you select the item on the list to boot from. Being that not knowledgeable about this, the more proficient will give you the correct write up on how to do it.

On my Acer desktop F12 will take you to a screen where you can choose the drive that you want to boot from. Very practical if you sometimes wish to boot from different kinds of removable media: you don't have to change the boot order in the BIOS.

[Just17]

I have a question.

Is it possible to have a desktop setup with two hard drives. One would have pclinux (of course) and the second would have Win-blows.

I really don't want to use grub to boot between the two. Mainly because I read too many posts about issues with dual boot systems and I don' want that hassle or risk during installs or updates between either system.

What I was thinking is to just set my bios to to tell the pc which drive to boot off of. Is that doable?

I also believe that if its set to boot from the pclinux drive that the windows drive would be accessible to read/write files across, correct? I would not expect to be able to write files from windows to linux, and thats ok. (unless there's some win software that supports linux formats, I'm not that familiar with it).

Such a set up is what I would recommend when there are two disks available.

Windows on the first HDD controls booting of that disk.

PCLOS on the second disk controls booting of that disk.

Either disk will boot without the other.

To achieve this, when PCLOS is being installed make sure that Grub is written to the disk that PCLOS is being installed on, and not to the Win disk.

Set the BIOS to boot from the second (PCLOS) disk.

That is all that is required.

This will have the effect of keeping both disks independently bootable.

Because Grub can have a 'chainloader' entry in the menu, the Win disk can be called to boot from the PCLOS disk .....  this is similar to rebooting and selecting which disk to boot from a menu.

So there will be no need to make a disk selection (usually F12 or such during POST) to boot Windows or PCLOS.

I hope that helps ....  if you need clarification post back.