OS Selector Alternative?

[Sup3rkirby]

I am in a stage where I want a dual boot, but don't feel like partitioning right now. As a solution, I took an old 15 GB Hard Drive from a very very old PC. I installed this into my new computer and it is all ready.

Now I plan to install Sabayon Linux permanently on this hard drive and I also would love to dual boot the two oeprating systems(XP being the obvious other OS), but they are on two seperate Hard Drives.

OS Selector from Acronis is something I've seen, but with a tag of $49.99 I am not too much into that idea. There honestly must be some open source or software that does the same thing. Any ideas anyone? I simply want a simple way to manage my two hard drives and choose the default hard drive to boot from.

[supersaf]

Hey,

Try GRUB. It's brill. I think it's one the best.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

Let me know what you think.

And you're looking for a bootloader. (in case you didn't know what it was called, not trying to patronize you, just making sure you know what you're looking for)

There are some other alternatives as well. There are some which run off a CD but as you are going to be dual booting permanently I think GRUB would be your best option. Go on the link above and get more info.

Tell me what you think and which one you end up using.

Hope this helps!

[malfist]

Sabayon should automatically set up and install grub for dual booting, that is if you have already installed windows. If you install windows after it, windows will overwrite the MBR and allow only windows to be booted into (thanks!).

While 15GB is good to play around with, it's not enough for serious use of linux, at least not for me. But then I'm a developer and I have all kinds of SDK's as stuff polluting my hard drive, along with lots of large files and bittorrent downloads.

[GamingX]

I think the best option would be to install Windows XP first. Then install Sabayon. I think it comes along with Grub. You just have to make an entry for Windows XP by entering the correct drive (hd0 or hd1) and correct partition.

[Sup3rkirby]

Yea, I was looking to avoid the grub bootloader thing this time. I've used it before with a dual boot on the same partition. Ended up messing up things when I uninstalled linux and went back to just windows. Had to get the super grub disc thingy(sorry, forgot the real name) and booted this to uninstall grub so I could boot windows once linux was gone.

Thankfully Sabayon is nice and lets you choose whether or not you want to install grub. I chose no, and my computer boots hda1 by default(of course) so it functions as it normally would. But after some research I might get the Acronis OS Selector. I've tried it out and it isn't half bad. I'll be checking for some timer options so if I boot and walk away it can boot an OS without me being there, but it works nicely. Displays all the OSes installed and gives you plenty of options. It is a nice package actually.

[Darasen]

The boot loader used by Slackware Linux LILO works very well for me.