Dual Booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu? (Separate Hard Drives)

[TheSportkid24]

Hello all,

 

Lately, I have been intrigued with the Linux distro, Ubuntu. I have wanted to try Linux for a while, and I now, I really want to. I have been reading up on how to dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but most of the tutorials are on systems with one hard drive. This got me wondering, how would I install Ubuntu on a system with two hard drives. I would like my SSD to be only Windows and some important applications. I would like to partition my 2TB hard drive to be partly Linux, partly Windows (Mostly Windows, though, as it will remain my main operating system). Is there a way to make these two operating systems play nice on separate hard drives relatively easy?

 

Thanks,

TheSportkid24

[GerbiLock]

This tutorial on LinusBSDos helped me when I was trying to do the same thing. Hope this helps!

 

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/10/10/dual-boot-windows-7-and-ubuntu-12-04-on-a-pc-with-uefi-board-ssd-and-hdd/

[ManWithBeard1990]

if Windows is on the SSD already, just install Linux on the 2TB hard drive and make an extra NTFS partition. You won't be able to do a RAID with your existing Windows with it but as long as that's not what you're trying to do you should be alright.

To do that you should choose manual partitioning, first make the extra NTFS partition for Windows you want, as it's better to have the things you'll be using more often at the front of the disk. Next make an ext4 partition of your preferred size for Ubuntu and set its mount point to '/'. And lastly, you also need a small ext4 partition for the bootloader. Set its mount point to '/boot' and, if necessary in the installer, specify that that's where you want the bootloader installed. Let the isnatllation proceed as normal. GRUB will detect operating systems on all drives. The last thing you want to do then is go into your BIOS and set the computer to boot from the 2 TB harddrive instead of the SSD. That way, every time the pc boots, it'll go to GRUB, which will let you choose an OS instead of going straight into Windows.