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I have installed a dual boot (windows 7 Ubuntu 14.04) on my HP Pavilion p7-1155 desktop. Windows resides on the first hard drive (SATA0) and Ubuntu resides on a second hard drive (SATA1). Everything seems to work fine except that I would like to boot from the second hard drive. It seems however, from the research that I have done, HP desktops are not able to boot from the second hard drive. It is possible to boot from a second drive on a one off basis, but not on a permanent basis. The BIOS permits you to set the boot drive as SATA1 and the system boots accordingly, however the next time the desktop is booted the BIOS reverts to booting from SATA0. Is there a way to get around this limitation?

EDIT from comments: My BIOS is CAR_714.ROM v7.14

Would something as simple as physically swapping the drive cables on the motherboard work. I am reluctant to do it as I don't want to crash my system, because of my lack of technical knowledge.

Thanks in advance.

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    You have to go inside BIOS settings and change the boot order to SATA1 first. This is different for different makes and models. Inside settings, in one of the pages, you will see the HDDs (and DVD, USB etc) listed in the order BIOS tries to boot from. Move SATA1 above SATA0. Then save and exit.
    – user68186
    May 5, 2015 at 16:14
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    See points 8 through 11 in this answer
    – user68186
    May 5, 2015 at 16:42

2 Answers 2

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Navigate through your system BIOS to set boot order to boot from your second drive. How to do this exactly depends on what version of the BIOS you are using. Details on how to navigate the BIOS are provided by your manufacturer here. Based on the information provided if you have version 6 or less look under the boot tab and if it's 7 or greater look under the storage tab. You should find boot options there. Pay close attention to the details provided by the manufacturer on how to make a choice and save it.

GRUB2 will boot off of any available drive. As long as the OS's in question and GRUB are installed and configured properly, GRUB will boot any OS configured from any drive it's on. There's no need for swapping cables or changing BIOS settings.

You can use Grub Customizer to set default OS to boot, as well as other fun customizations. Grub Customizer is available via Daniel Richters' PPA here. Simply choose your release from the list and filter the results. Opening the source drop down (as shown) will open up the list of available source and pre-compiled packages.

DR-PPA

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  • Currently Grub is installed on my second drive (SATA1) and as I can't boot off my second drive, except on a one of basis, this doesn't resolve my problem. At least as I understand this suggestion solution. May 7, 2015 at 2:45
  • That's odd. What BIOS version are you running?
    – Elder Geek
    May 7, 2015 at 14:31
  • @thebluesquirel Edited answer.
    – Elder Geek
    May 7, 2015 at 14:45
  • It agree its very odd. My BIOS is CAR_714.ROM v7.14 May 7, 2015 at 15:14
  • edited answer for clarity.
    – Elder Geek
    May 7, 2015 at 16:51
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Your computer's bios will boot into whatever drive is on top of the priority list, put the drive you wish to boot from on top of the priority list. It's usually in (f2) but will depend upon your computer.

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  • In my BIOS menus there are two choices to alter the boot sequence. F9 allows the boot location to be changed, i.e. from SATA0 to SATA1 and the computer boots from SATA1 perfectly. This is a one time only change in that it isn't supposed to be a permanent. The second option is the F10 BIOS change feature. Here you can change the boot order by dragging the preferred boot source to the top of the list. You then save the change and exit the BIOS setup . The desktop will boot from SATA1. HOWEVER, after the desktop is shutdown and rebooted the BIOS reverts to booting from SATA0. Very odd. May 7, 2015 at 15:28

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