Dual Boot with Two Hard drives Win 7 and Linux Mint 11.04

[Solraeus]

Hello
I have two drives in my system. One is an SSD that has Windows 7 Prodessional 64 bt installed. The other has files/data,etc. I would like to be able to dual boot to either the Windows OS or to an installation of Mint 11.04 64 bit. Can someone explain easily the best way to get this done and the best way period? I would prefer not to install Mint to the SSD unless that is required. Thank you.

[Roken]

You can install LM to your other HD with no problems. If you don't want to install grub to the SSD them tell it to install to the Mint drive at installation time. Once done you will need to change the boot order in your BIOS to boot from the HD, not the SSD. By doing this, if you choose to boot Windows grub will pass control to the Windows bootloader on the SSD, so you won't lose the speed advantage of the SSD when using Windows.

You will need to repartition your HD as part of the installation process to make room for Mint if you already have data on it that you want to save.

[breaker]

Hello
I have two drives in my system. One is an SSD that has Windows 7 Prodessional 64 bt installed. The other has files/data,etc. I would like to be able to dual boot to either the Windows OS or to an installation of Mint 11.04 64 bit. Can someone explain easily the best way to get this done and the best way period? I would prefer not to install Mint to the SSD unless that is required. Thank you.

In my view there is never a best way period, just a way that fits your situation.

However, in your situation, I would recommend installing EasyBCD in Windows 7, and using it to modify your BCD store to point to a Linux Mint installation. So you would first back up your data and/or Windows 7 system, then defrag that 2nd drive, use Windows 7 "Disk Management" to right-click on the volume and "shrink volume." After that you'll need to run a chkdsk on what is left of that drive. Now you'll have free space available on that second drive for the Mint installer to partition and format for the install. During the install be sure to choose Advanced and tell it exactly where to put Mint (the space you created). Further in the install is another "Advanced" button having to do with the boot loader. Make sure you tell it NOT to install a boot loader (GRUB) because you will be using EasyBCD to modify the Windows 7 BCD store and point it to your new Linux Mint distro.

OR, you can just let the Mint install put GRUB on your MBR, but please note this will be on your SSD (the GRUB boot loader).

You COULD let the installer resize your disk, but I whole-heartedly recommend using the native Windows 7 tools to do the resize, then do the chkdsk, specifically

Code: Select all

chkdsk X: /x/f

where "X" is the drive letter of your 2nd disk.

Other than my suggestions, there are some "Ultimate" Ubuntu/Windows 7 dual-boot guides out there if you search.

Things can go wrong, so like I said, back up your stuff.

Have fun!