most computers usually look to the first connected drive (along the IDE cable or equivalent) for booting information, if it's the windows drive, then that's where you put the bootloader.
unfortunately windows is really designed to be more of a standalone operating system and doesn't like to share boot records with other software. So installing windows always overwrites the boot records and you just have to reinstall the bootloader afterwards. If you're frequently reinstalling windows, here is a trick I'd use: -firstly setup windows the way it is normally setup after installing -install linux and whatever else to make your computer beep and whirrr happily -get an ghosting program to take an "image" of the freshly setup windows partition (norton ghost should work fine for this) and have it ready to restore from CD's So once you have that setup done (complete with the "ghosting disks") when you need to reinstall windows just restore it from the ghost images instead of putting in the original windows install CD. Thus you will have effectively done the same as a format and reinstall of the partition and done in less time it takes to reinstall traditionally each time AND your bootloader should remain untouched. Using the removeable drive bay method is another solution. Have a windows drive, linux drive and a standalone data drive, and swap the windows drive with a linux drive before starting the computer - no need for bootloader if the system you wanna run is always on the first disk! and the data drive (if setup as a FAT32 filesystem) can operate as a shared drivespace to access files from either windows or linux. If you're not doing much with linux at this stage - an alternative would be to get a linux "live" CD/DVD (like Knoppix) so you can play and experiment with linux before dicking about with hard drives. I'm a bit of a noob too, but I've poked linux a fair bit with the wand of experimentation to share this with you..... :) ================================ Colin Nash http://www.colinnashonline.com/ ================================ ----- Original Message ----- From: "arsenic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 8:48 AM Subject: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: two hard drives` > I'm a newbie myself so someone correct me if I'm wrong... but can you also > install your bootloader on the external drive and change the BIOS settings > to boot from that drive first? I know installing to the MBR of the > Windoze drive works but if you ever have to reinstall Windows then it will > be gone and you won't be able to get to your bootloader. I had that > problem anyway.... > ----- Original Message ----- > From: suprmariobro > To: [email protected] > Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 6:44 AM > Subject: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: two hard drives` > > > --- In [email protected], Robert C Wittig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > > > Hello suprmariobro, > > > > Thursday, November 17, 2005, 10:04:17 PM, you wrote: > > > > s> I'm new to linux and i'm having trouble installing it.I have two > > s> hard drives an internal and external. I want to install linux on my > > s> external drive but it won't work.Windows keeps booting on the > internal > > s> drive. Can anyone help me? > > > > When you install your Linux distro, there should be an option for > > choosing either to install a boot loader (like LILO or GRUB) in the > > /MBR or to boot from a floppy disk. > > > > With two operating systems on a single computer, you need a bootloader > > on the first hard drive, so that you can choose which OS to boot. > > > > If you don't want to install a bootloader, and have a floppy drive, > > you can create a floppy boot disk just for Linux, and then when you > > want to boot the Linux OS, you can use the floppy, which will boot > > before any HD, if you have it set to do that in the BIOS. > > > > > > -wittig > > website: http://www.robertwittig.com/ > > weblog: http://robertcwittig.blogspot.com/ > > . > >where would i download a linux boot disk or a boot loader > > > > > > > > To unsubscribe from this list, please email > [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS > > a.. Visit your group "LINUX_Newbies" on the web. > > b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of > Service. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > To unsubscribe from this list, please email > [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed. > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/0XFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this list, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] & you will be removed. Yahoo! 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