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I have just installed Ubuntu on a hard disk and windows 8.1 on another hard disk. How to make dual boot when pc starts ? As I have mentioned, they are not on different partitions, they are on different hard disks.

Thank you!

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    Is this a newer system with UEFI and CSM/BIOS? If so did you install both in the some boot mode. And did you use Something Else and choose to install the grub2 boot loader to the Ubuntu drive? If both are in the same mode run this in Ubuntu: sudo update-grub
    – oldfred
    Oct 26, 2014 at 22:31

2 Answers 2

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Generally, to make dual-boot work out of the box, one needs to install windows first and then Ubuntu. Ubuntu's bootloader - GRUB2 then autodetects Windows and creates entry in the GRUB bootlist.

If you did the other way round, that is installed Ubuntu and then Windows, then you would need to repair the GRUB to be able to boot into both OSs.

Now coming on to the next part, since you installed the OS on different HDDs altogether, you need to set the HDD with the GRUB bootloader as the first device to boot from in the BIOS.

If you have any issues figuring out the above, you may leave a comment and i will improve the answer.

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  • You're a life saver. That comment about setting the right HDD to boot off, did the trick for me. Somehow Ubuntu (or boot-repair) switched the boot HDD to the wrong one, and I didn't know what the heck was going on. Aug 5, 2018 at 12:30
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First disable UEFI in Windows because that will not allow you to enter into bios. Then after disabling, set the Linux HDD to boot first. Boot Ubuntu and install Grub Customizer:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer  
sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer  

Then launch the program and it should recognize Windows 8. Move it as primary or secondary on the list, however you want it.

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