hi
I would like to install ubuntu on my second hard drive.I would like to learn more about multiboot install.
ferenc

Hi,

A good start would be:
https://encrypted.google.com/search?...w=1440&bih=759

Kind regards

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This site has several detailed tutorials for dual boot Ubuntu and Windows: http://www.members.iinet.net/~herman546/
On that site the "Graphical Installation A" discusses dual booting with Ubuntu on the second hard drive: http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p24.html

hi
the reason of my posted request is to get the adeqvat answare for my problem.I have a computer with two bhard drives and one of them has win xp installed. I installed ubntu on the 'top' of win xp, then something went wrong I decided to reinstall it. that meant I have two ubntu installed. when I tried to reinstall again, instead of wiping uot the former install I've got a third one. so install matter went wrong definitely, because grub istall went wrong too so I do not have neider windoes nor ubuntu. I would like to clean all ubuntu install, get back win xp access, put ubuntu on second hard drive, just I do not know yet how. that is why I need help.
ferenc

That means you installed Ubuntu to the same partition as xp and in all likelihood you have overwritten your xp installation.
When you boot the Ubuntu CD, select the option to Try without installing. When you get to the Desktop, open a terminal. Most versions of Ubuntu showed an Application tab in the upper left, click it and mouse over the options to find terminal, click it and type: sudo fdisk -l(lowercase Letter L in the command) hit the enter key and post the output here. Have both drives attached when you boot.

Did you have any data you wanted to keep on xp? Did you do a backup before starting the Ubuntu install? If you have to reinstall xp and Ubuntu, do the xp installation first.

Can also be a Wubi install. The output of sudo fdisk -l will show that.

First, we need to know exactly what you currently have installed on your 2 hard drives.
Boot up the Ubuntu live CD, open a terminal, and post the output of:
This will list the partitions on your hard drives as well as what file system is on each partition.

Second, we need to get some idea of where the grub boot loader is installed and what operating systems grub can see on your hard drives. So using the Ubuntu live CD please download and run the bootinfo script and post the output here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/
Here is an explanation on how to use the bootinfo script: http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/

Hopefully Windows XP is still installed on (I would assume) the first hard drive on your computer. For simplicity, and in order to avoid problems, Windows XP should be installed on the first primary partition on the first hard drive. Ubuntu can be installed on either hard drive. Linux operating systems can be installed to primary or logical partitions.
So as long as XP is still there we can simply delete all of the Ubuntu installs you have done. Then we can ideally create 3 partitions for Ubuntu. We need a root partition of about 10-20GB for the Ubuntu operating system. We need a swap partition which can be 1GB. Swap is analogous to virtual memory on
Windows XP. Then ideally we should have a separate home partition for all of our user specific settings as well as all of our data.
When installing Ubuntu we need to select manual partitioning for this so we can create partitions of the exact sizes that we need.
See this tutorial on partitioning Ubuntu with a separate home partition: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installseparatehome

EDIT: I was composing this post during the time when Yancec and Tobi posted here. So I did not see their posts before I posted this answer. In any case, the info I posted here is still relevant.

hi
when I installed ubuntu first it happend on first hard drive and the dual boot was working. Than I did an alfa upgrade for the next version. I should not do that because it was unstable. when I tried to reinstall I've got installed ubuntu beside former ubuntu and windows. the third install went wrong grub installed failed so I do not have anything. I just tried clean up the former install what was beside win xp.

Using alpha builds of anything is only for those people who enjoy trying to fix things that are broken. If you are not one of those people you should stick with the stable builds of Ubuntu.
So can you post the output of sudo fdisk -l, and the results of the bootinfo script that I linked to in my last post??? This will help us to find out what exactly you have going on so we can fix this mess.
If it were me, I would reinstall Ubuntu 11.04, which is the current version.
When you get to the partitioning part of the reinstall, choose manual partitioning. Then delete all of the Ubuntu installs you have.
You can leave your separate home partition (if you have one) as it is.
Then create new Ubuntu root and swap partitions and reinstall Ubuntu.
This is where a separate home partition comes in handy. When you screw things up you can rest assured that all of your data is safe on a separate partition.