I suppose you connect via USB - there are other methods and the answer is perhaps the same
What is controlling boot when the external disk is not connected?
I read this as you only have XP on the internal disk. If so then the boot order of the disks must be set so the external is first, which is somewhat confusing.....
Where do you change boot options? At boot time?
If you have a consistent boot order you could edit menu.lst
Code: Select all
gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
Maybe you should leave recovery mode as it is just in casetitle Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=/dev/sdb1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic