Multiple Computers, single harddrive

[WanderingFool]

Hopefully someone can help me figure this out, as this is a bit of a different situation and I have been having troubles finding out if this would be possible.

 

So to make the overall goal as short as possible the following is what I am trying to do:

 

1 ssd, 3 different computers with 3 different hardware specs (1 without internet access)

The goal is to install ubuntu 14.04 onto 3 different partitions, and have it so each machine has a partition that it can boot from (manually selected by the user).

 

Effectively my use case would be, I bring the SSD to the computer, plug it in via a dock and boot using the SSD and having something similar to GRUB to select the OS which was installed with that computer's hardware.

 

 

My current setup is I have 4 separate drives, one drive for each computer which I bring along and a second data drive.  I just want to consolidate them all into one drive though, so it is easier to carry around (I currently need to carry all 4 drives, as I cannot leave them at the computers where they boot from).  (VM's are not an option either)

 

Any help would be appreciated, as I am really at a lose of what to even google.  I only really know about setting up dual boots, but nothing about trying to setup 1 harddrive that could be used to boot into multiple computers.

[The Pi]

Wouldn't grub it's self be able to handle this? just have three installs on the single drive and away you go? It shouldn't be any different from triple boot on a single machine.

[TheKDub]

Erm, Not sure if that would work very well.

 

Perhaps if it was put inside of a NAS then set up the computers to boot from that?

[WanderingFool]

Wouldn't grub it's self be able to handle this? just have three installs on the single drive and away you go? It shouldn't be any different from triple boot on a single machine.

I was hoping there would be some method like grub which would work, but I don't think it can.  The issue is the 3 computers use different CPU architectures, so it isn't as simple as just installing it 3 times.

 

Erm, Not sure if that would work very well.

 

Perhaps if it was put inside of a NAS then set up the computers to boot from that?

My problem is one of the PC's doesn't have boot from network (needs to be esata), and the other doesn't have an internet connection.

[TheKDub]

I was hoping there would be some method like grub which would work, but I don't think it can.  The issue is the 3 computers use different CPU architectures, so it isn't as simple as just installing it 3 times.

 

My problem is one of the PC's doesn't have boot from network (needs to be esata), and the other doesn't have an internet connection.

 

Then I'm not all that sure if it will work

[The Pi]

I was hoping there would be some method like grub which would work, but I don't think it can.  The issue is the 3 computers use different CPU architectures, so it isn't as simple as just installing it 3 times.

The bootloader isn't affected by the architchure though, all you need is booting then the install can have drivers etc for the each system.

[mathijs727]

Im pretty sure thats not possible, you would need some kind of hypervisor to split access to the drive.

What you could do is use fast USB3 drives to boot from, that would make it both faster and still easier to carry (i'd rather carry 3 USB drives then 1 3.5" HDD)