Do I need a Boot Manager??

**REMY** · 06-25-10, 10:13 PM

I am stuck guys and need some help. Right now I have 2 drives. One of which is a SSD that has windows 7 and I only use that drive for gaming. Then I have another SATA drive with windows 7 as well that I do all my work on.
My issue is that I would like to be able to choose which one to boot without having to unplug one just to use the other.

Someone told me I need a Boot Manager. There are a few free ones at Major Geek but I know nothing about them. I dont anything about Raids bla bla bla.

Here is a image and where I stick my Red Sata Cables into:

Blue - SSD Gaming drive, I mostley Use
Green - 1 TB Sata Drive with all my work desktop, programs, files
Purple - DVD/Cd Drive

When I boot it up it reads my SSD first and then my DVD/CD but not my other drive unless I put it under the purple one then it reads as Drive E:

I want to be able at start up to choose which one I want to boot. Can it be done?

Thanks for your help.

Remy

**Bunni** · 06-25-10, 11:11 PM

grub: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351

Youll want to download a linux distro (go with Ubuntu if this is your first time around). You will use this distro to install grub (your boot manager). In simple examples, you could install grub stand alone, but since your installing to a special part of your harddrives (so your computer reads them at boot and is able to load your boot manager) you need something to install it there for you.

Most linux distros come with grub on them, ready to be installed. So just download a Ubuntu live cd. Boot into it, follow those instructions to install grub. Restart the computer and remove the ubuntu live cd. Then your good to go (all of this of course is done without the need of altering your currently installed os's)

simple easy, clean. leme know if you need help

**REMY** · 06-26-10, 09:49 AM

Sweet. Thanks B.

**deputyfestus** · 06-26-10, 11:56 AM

You may want to try this I don't know your os but it seem's to work with all. http://download.cnet.com/EasyBCD/300...#editorsreview

**Imisnew2** · 06-26-10, 12:14 PM

BEWARE:
Windows 7 has a nasty tendency to move all of its boot-up stuff around, so grub (or any boot manager..) may or may not work for you (without any tweaking). It just depends on how cranky windows 7 is.

**Bunni** · 06-26-10, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Imisnew2

BEWARE:
Windows 7 has a nasty tendency to move all of its boot-up stuff around, so grub (or any boot manager..) may or may not work for you (without any tweaking). It just depends on how cranky windows 7 is.

Really? I after installing W7 on my laptop, grub remained perfectly functional, untouched, even the old directive for the previously installed vista bootloader caught fine.

**fender_dude07** · 06-26-10, 01:46 PM

can you not go to your boot screen when your computer starts by pressing F12 (on mine. might not be on yours)i can set my boot options and can select which disk to boot from. so maybe that would work?

**Imisnew2** · 06-26-10, 01:54 PM

Originally Posted by Bunni

Really? I after installing W7 on my laptop, grub remained perfectly functional, untouched, even the old directive for the previously installed vista bootloader caught fine.

When my uncle and I installed win 7 on his computer, he already had linux installed (along with XP) and was using grub to dual boot.
However, when we installed win 7, it decided to move every single boot flag (it moved grub entirely...) to a "reserved space" on windows 7 drive.
THEN it wouldn't let you access it, and would just boot up windows 7.

SOOOO
We used a live CD with ubuntu which magically was able to access grub, and we moved everything back where it should be.
Or rather, I watched my uncle do the whole thing, but it was hair-ripping-out-of-head frustrating enough.

**hannibal** · 06-26-10, 04:10 PM

The solution to this is to restore grub to the MBR, if you are using grub2 when you do update-grub, it will discover all of the other OS partitions on your machine, as an aside it has allways been the case that you must either do a grub restore or re-install, after you install a Windows partition.

-H