Re: GRUB location on Dual-Boot with TWO hard drives
On Sat, 13 Oct 2012 00:40:40 -0400
Wally Lepore <wallylepore@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> If I choose NO to the installer's question as to placing GRUB in the
> MBR of the 1st drive. What are my choices as to where to install it? I
> don't want to answer "NO" to the question only to advance the
> installer to a dead end. I have no idea what may happen next if I
> answer NO. Any ideas or suggestions please?
>
You have the choice of installing it in the Debian partition, or not at
all. In the latter case, you will need to boot to Debian from a
removable drive. This will quickly become tedious. If you install it in
the Debian partition, you will need to run this bootloader from the
first stage of the Windows bootloader.
What it comes down to is that you need to boot the first stages of one
of your operating systems and select either to continue to boot it or
to boot the other.
If you have Windows up to XP, it is fairly simple either way. Windows
can boot other operating systems easily, though after XP it became much
harder to edit the bootloader (Windows' 'Grub2 moment'). Up to and
including XP, it was a matter of editing the boot.ini text file,
present in the root of the Windows boot partition. Once this file
includes two or more operating system entries, you will be given a
small menu with a timeout and default before Windows starts.
Should you decide to use Grub for the initial boot, and something goes
wrong that can't be fixed, all versions of Windows can have their
MBR bootloaders restored from their installation discs, or from a rescue
disc made from within Windows. Whatever you decide, it is probably
worth making this rescue disc, as you probably don't have the
installation disc. Research how to do this and how to make the repair
before you lose the Internet...
--
Joe
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