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[healer]

I have bought a 1.5TB external hard disc hoping at one time I can connect it via a USB port to a laptop that has a 64-bit Windows 7 Pro already installed and at another time connect it via a SATA port to a desktop that has various operating systems already installed on various partitions.

For the sake of testing I intend to set up a few partitions on this external drive of mine for doing backup and setting up a few server systems.  How should I go about it?

Can I install the plop boot manager on the external drive so it goes with the drive wherever it connects to.  If I can, will I be able to uninstall it easily without messing up the partitions on there.  Please point me to the web page where I should follow.  I have tried the http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html but there isn't any that fits exactly what I want.

Shall I partition the external drive and install all the operating systems before I install the Plop Boot Manager on the external drive?
Which of the follow should I use?  Are the first two bootable disk with which I can install the Plop boot Manager straight to the external drive?  What emulation mode are they referring to?  Do we use the last two from the Windows system?  When do we use them?

install/plpbtin.iso        - install cd iso (floppy emulation mode)
install/plpbtinnoemul.iso  - install cd iso (no emulation mode)
install/plpinst.com        - install program with backup function
install/plpinstc.com       - install program without backup function

[walterav]

I have bought a 1.5TB external hard disc hoping at one time I can connect it via a USB port to a laptop that has a 64-bit Windows 7 Pro already installed and at another time connect it via a SATA port to a desktop that has various operating systems already installed on various partitions.

For the sake of testing I intend to set up a few partitions on this external drive of mine for doing backup and setting up a few server systems.  How should I go about it?

Can I install the plop boot manager on the external drive so it goes with the drive wherever it connects to.  If I can, will I be able to uninstall it easily without messing up the partitions on there.  Please point me to the web page where I should follow.  I have tried the http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html but there isn't any that fits exactly what I want.

Shall I partition the external drive and install all the operating systems before I install the Plop Boot Manager on the external drive?
Which of the follow should I use?  Are the first two bootable disk with which I can install the Plop boot Manager straight to the external drive?  What emulation mode are they referring to?  Do we use the last two from the Windows system?  When do we use them?

install/plpbtin.iso        - install cd iso (floppy emulation mode)
install/plpbtinnoemul.iso  - install cd iso (no emulation mode)
install/plpinst.com        - install program with backup function
install/plpinstc.com       - install program without backup function

I don't think you need PLOP at all, just select boot USB or e-SATA from the BIOS.

[healer]

I don't think you need PLOP at all, just select boot USB or e-SATA from the BIOS.

I am going to have multiple operating systems in various partitions in the external drive.  So I need to be able to select which partition on the external drive I want to boot into.

I have not installed the second operating system yet because I don't want the Windows multi-boot manager.  I have supposed that Plop Boot Manger is good because I can install the boot manager on the external drive and I can move the external drive to another computer and it would still  work.

[walterav]

I don't think you need PLOP at all, just select boot USB or e-SATA from the BIOS.

I am going to have multiple operating systems in various partitions in the external drive.  So I need to be able to select which partition on the external drive I want to boot into.

I have not installed the second operating system yet because I don't want the Windows multi-boot manager.  I have supposed that Plop Boot Manger is good because I can install the boot manager on the external drive and I can move the external drive to another computer and it would still  work.

Having grub2 on the external harddisk will make it all possible, maybe use chainloader option if every partition on the external disk uses its own bootloader. Which OS are you planning to install on the external device.

Plop is especially useful if the BIOS doesn't do any USB booting, but I guess the machines you are using are quite new.

[Elmar]

 i suggest also to use grub or grub2 on the usb drive.

however, when you want to install the plop boot manager to the usb drive and you have a pc with bios usb support and an internal cdrom drive, then the fastest way is:
1) burn "install/plpbtinnoemul.iso"
2) connect the usb drive to the pc
3) boot the cdrom
4) choose your destination drive for installing. when you have one internal hard drive and one usb drive connected and usb boot is not in the boot up sequence (or the last option)  then it should be 81h. its bios depending but it should be 81h in this case.

regards
elmar

[healer]

Having grub2 on the external harddisk will make it all possible, maybe use chainloader option if every partition on the external disk uses its own bootloader. Which OS are you planning to install on the external device.
Plop is especially useful if the BIOS doesn't do any USB booting, but I guess the machines you are using are quite new.

Sorry for late response.  I didn't receive notification as I had expected and I have been busy.

I've checked grub2 on http://grub.enbug.org/Manual.  It looks like it is still in a state of flux.  If you think otherwise, could you please give me some plain guidelines or point me to some good web pages so that I can find out how to install it.  Should I install all the operating systems first?  Then how can I prevent the Windows to set up the Windows multi-boot manager?  I plan to install Windows server 2008 and server 2003 and some Linux system such as ubuntu to start with.  I might have to change the choice of operating systems as I've just realized having a single core processor could restrict what operating system I can install though it has 4G memory and supports 64bits and has hardware assisted virtualization.

It does boot from USB as well.

[healer]

i suggest also to use grub or grub2 on the usb drive.

however, when you want to install the plop boot manager to the usb drive and you have a pc with bios usb support and an internal cdrom drive, then the fastest way is:
1) burn "install/plpbtinnoemul.iso"
2) connect the usb drive to the pc
3) boot the cdrom
4) choose your destination drive for installing. when you have one internal hard drive and one usb drive connected and usb boot is not in the boot up sequence (or the last option)  then it should be 81h. its bios depending but it should be 81h in this case.

regards
elmar

What will the install/plpbtinnoemul.iso do?  How will it let me choose which operating system to boot from?  Will I need to do some configuration so that it knows what operating systems I have?  Are you saying booting from install/plpbtinnoemul.iso I can then install the operating system from the selected drive or partition and repeat the same next time when I want to boot the particular operating system?

The computers in question can boot from the USB drive though one of them can't boot from grub4dos.  So I have noticed though BIOS supports booting from USB it also depends upon what bootloader we use.

Sorry!  I don't quite follow the "81h".  Please explain!

[Elmar]

when you want to use windows from usb, then at first you should take care that your windows is able to boot from usb.

for windows boot from usb and grub stuff see http://www.boot-land.net/

[healer]

when you want to use windows from usb, then at first you should take care that your windows is able to boot from usb.

for windows boot from usb and grub stuff see http://www.boot-land.net/

I didn't know there would be problem booting Windows or Linux on a USB connected external hard drive.  I had supposed as long as the computer can boot a USB drive, everything would be all right as far as booting is concerned.

I couldn't see any articles there on this subject.  I suppose you expect me to canvass this subject on their forum.

[Elmar]

I didn't know there would be problem booting Windows or Linux on a USB connected external hard drive.  I had supposed as long as the computer can boot a USB drive, everything would be all right as far as booting is concerned.

thats wrong. not every linux can boot from usb and especially not every windows can boot from usb. windows 7 supports usb boot natively (maybe vista too, i am not interested in windows), but before them you have to modify your windows. simply search the web for "windows usb boot", i hope you are not shocked too much. current linux versions should boot without any problem from usb.

I couldn't see any articles there on this subject. 

i dont know how or what you searched, but the boot-land forum is full of infos about windows and usb boot and its full with grub topics.

[healer]

i am not interested in windows

Just a question on the side.  If you are not interested in Windows You must be interested in Linux.  Which distro is you favourite?  I have wanted to use Linux for some time.  However getting drivers for everything seems to be very challenging, driver for printers , driver for wirless interface and so on.

[Elmar]

Which distro is you favourite?  I have wanted to use Linux for some time.

i dont need a distro. i use my own from scratch compiled linux.

as beginner, you should try ubuntu.

[healer]

I did use ubuntu.  When I could not find the drivers for my printers and the wireless interface I gave up.

Back to my original questions.  I've got some info from http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?s=0cd6204aa466477d5e015d1bfe88ef53&showtopic=12433&pid=108698&st=0&#entry108698.  They don't look straightforward to me.  Perhaps I should find out how I should go about using the plop boot manager or whatever appropriate so that I can tackle one operating system at a time.

Would you be able to advise me the best way to go about it being a newbie?

[Elmar]

Back to my original questions.  I've got some info from http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?s=0cd6204aa466477d5e015d1bfe88ef53&showtopic=12433&pid=108698&st=0&#entry108698.  They don't look straightforward to me.  Perhaps I should find out how I should go about using the plop boot manager or whatever appropriate so that I can tackle one operating system at a time.

your first step should be to install windows that is able to boot from usb. it makes no sense to use any boot manager as long as you are not able to boot a single windows from usb.

Would you be able to advise me the best way to go about it being a newbie?

first of all you have to study by yourself. when you really want to realize your usb hard disk with multiple systems, then you have to work for it. there are a lot of documentations in the web.

[healer]

your first step should be to install windows that is able to boot from usb. it makes no sense to use any boot manager as long as you are not able to boot a single windows from usb.

first of all you have to study by yourself. when you really want to realize your usb hard disk with multiple systems, then you have to work for it. there are a lot of documentations in the web.

I always learn by doing it.  Just reading the theory or the procedure I wouldn't be able to go anywhere.  I intend to read up and follow some of them to try it out.  I would like to try more than one at the same time, different procedure or different permutations.  So I suppose it would be good if I have some mechanism to select which one to boot from.  There would be different ways for achieving the same things.  Sometimes I have a break on one and go to another and then come back to the first one later.  Brainwaves could come during the break.

I am not asking here about how to make Windows system bootable on USB drive.  That's never my intention.  I am asking about PLOP boot manager and I have supposed what this forum is for.