1

I already have Windows 7 installed on a 80 GB SSD. I want Ubuntu on the same machine, but because of the limited space on the C: drive, I wondered if it is possible to install Ubuntu on another drive. Or must both operating systems be located on the same, bootable drive?

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

You can select another drive when installing Ubuntu. Just be sure when it asks you where to install that you chose another drive or you'll blow your Windows 7 install away.

Improve this answer
2
  • Yes you can easily do this. The drive names and manufacturers are normally presented thoug. I have 7 and vista installed on one drive, ubuntu on another, and fedora on a third. It was not to complicated.
    – a sandwhich
    Mar 1, 2011 at 18:08
  • As a sandwich said it's very easy and I can vouch for that. The day's of a complicated Linux install are for the most part gone (unless you choose an old fashioned installer) and Ubuntu even comes now with a utility to install to a VHD file on your Windows install that you can then boot into Ubuntu from. It's great if you just want to try Ubuntu out as it doesn't mess with your drives or anything.
    – Jeff Bolduan
    Mar 1, 2011 at 18:31
0

yes you can install Ubuntu to another disk, BUT you will have issue booting into Ubuntu when the computer loads. By this I mean that the bios of the machine will look at disk 1 first and boot that, it doesnt know that disk 2 has Ubuntu, unless you tell it through the bios.

Im not sure the GRUB boot loader will handle the 2 disks boot order. You would be able to choose from changing your bios boot disk order, but that would be a pain in the behind after a while.

You may have to edit your boot.ini file on your windows box to help determine which disk or rather give you options at boot time. I know you are able to boot windows from 2 separate disks.

This link may help you a little Link1

Improve this answer
0

Simple:

  1. Reduce your windows partition by a small amount you can afford, like 500 MB.
  2. In ubuntu installer, create a new partition in that space, formatting it ext4.
  3. Tell your ubuntu installer to mount that partition as /boot.
  4. Install ubuntu into your other disk (/root partition, separate /home if you like, etc)

Now, ubuntu will install GRUB into that new /boot partition, and make it active. GRUB will detect your OS's on both disks and display them in menu.

You can reorder your OS entries by ordering files in /etc/grub.d/ accordingly (I typically rename 30_osprober to 05_ to pull it forward), and then running 

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .