Run fixmbr from within Win 7

MilesAhead said:

Not to bash Ubuntu, I haven't tried it in a couple of years... but if you have broadband accessed through a popular network card you may want to try the One Disk Mandriva. I did the single CD install back when they called it Mandrake 9.1. It was great. It does the initial setup to get basic Linux on your HD, then the first thing it does is initialize your network card and get out on the internet. When you select packages to install, it does it right then. When you boot to an X window manager, all the stuff is there. You just log in.

Let's see, I've done 3 Ubuntu installs, on 3 different machines, over the course of 3 days.

The first install was on an older HP/Compaq nc6000 and it was a bear (which is strange given Ubuntu's excellent support for older hardware). Installing the wireless USB adapter was truly a nightmare, the hardware vendors are just not making code available for Linux developers. I gave that up and went back to XP Pro. :)

The second install was a little easier on my newer HP dv7 1245dx laptop, but I still had wireless issues. Again, it was just easier to reload a fresh install of Win 7 and get back to normal computing. The Win 7 install was a breeze BTW, it even installed almost all of the nasty HP device drivers (that is almost always a problem). I can't say this enough times, I am loving Win 7 Pro!

The third install is the one I'm working with now. I'm using 10.4 Lucid Lynx on my homebrew desktop and so far it's keeping track of wireless just fine (and the wireless installed painlessly too). Once I get this GRUB issue under control, I will be a happy man.

I will say one thing for Ubuntu, if you access the support forums (much like these), there are same great people willing to help you out with the myriad of issues that you're bound to face. I like and respect those people, they're good folks. Again, that's much like the people on these boards.

It just occurred to me that if I make the Linux drive the first boot device, what happens to the boot order when it's not there?

if the other drive has a bootable OS it will load

I ran a quick test in the BIOS and learned something. Whatever boot order that you set in BIOS stays there, regardless whether or not any of those devices are present at the next system boot. In my case, I have set the Linux drive before the Windows drive; whenever the Linux device is not available, the BIOS simply moves the next device up in the order.

In retrospect, I should have known that. I just never expected it to be so simple