My computer has two (IDE) hard drives fitted, one Seagate 160GB. and one Samsung 80GB.

On the 160GB drive I have Linux Ubuntu v 7.10. on the 80GB drive I have Windows XP.

I have been looking for information on how when I start my computer I can have a choice of what drive to open.

Do I need to start my computer from the BOIS ? if so how can I from the BOIS choose what hard drive I want to start from ? any help please as I can't find a step by step explination anywhere.

You'll need to install a boot manager. Ubuntu comes with one called GRUB which can install into the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the primary hard drive to give the choice.

If computer currently boots automatically from the Windows drive there are also ways to modify the boot.ini file to give the option of Ubuntu.

There are many, many tutorials on the Ubuntu forums of how to set up GRUB.

Thank's slackula I will try and find something out on that forum .

The easy way is to just open the bios at startup and go to boot settings to choose from which drive to start (F2).

Many computers have the F11 option to directrly choose from which disk to boot.

I think it's much easier and cleaner than a boot manager (but i'm not an expert). So I have win7 and winXP. In XP I disabled the drive with win7 on it so it won't know about its existence even..and things cannot get mixed up.

Yes obiwan I would really like to have that option but when I try starting from F11 all I get is the message... ( A disk read error occurred. press ctrl+alt+del to restart ) then it just starts up on ubuntu again.

If I start from BOIS F2. and select my second hard drive the one with Windows XP on it then it just starts up on ubuntu just the same ?

I might have to end up installing XP and ubuntu on the same hard drive yet as I have tried lots of what is on ubuntu forum in Terminal but nothing works, I think Linux is great but the Terminal is a place best left to Linus Torvalds and Ari Lemmke

What i did was that i disconnected the original xp drive before installing the other OS (win7) on the new drive. After the install i reconnected it. In that way the two OS don't know about each other and the PC will blindly boot from the bios selected drive.

What i did was that i disconnected the original xp drive before installing the other OS (win7) on the new drive. After the install i reconnected it. In that way the two OS don't know about each other and the PC will blindly boot from the bios selected drive.

That's exactly the way to go! The HDD which should run the new OS should be connected alone and the other should be disconnected. After installation the other's could be back connected.

Use the BIOS Boot for to choose the HDD which you like to start. Most of the MB's using F11 while Asus use F8 and Gigabyte use F12 for to get the BIOS Boot up and running.

Cheers.

Do I need to have my second drive, ( the one with Windows on it ) as a slave ?

Do I need to have my second drive, ( the one with Windows on it ) as a slave ?

I would suggest to set all IDE drive to CS (Cable Select). If you jumper the drivers to master and slave you normally can set the BIOS to force to boot from which drive you like automatic.

Cheers.