Tech Support Forum - View Single Post - [SOLVED] Cannot mount selected partition.

**Bartender** · 12-17-2007, 10:19 AM

I'm not sure I agree with some of Guardian-Mage's comments, or perhaps I just don't understand what he's saying. GRUB can certainly be told to install somewhere else besides hd0. I've done it.
If you tell it to install to hd1, it will (should?) install to the second HDD. But which drive does GRUB think is second? It clearly did not install to sda, otherwise the Windows HDD wouldn't have started up without errors because GRUB tweaked the MBR, or without seeing something from GRUB.
If it was me, I'd just try again with both HDD's plugged in, take notes, make sure you tell GRUB to install to hd1 if that is the second drive as identified by the Linux partitioner. In other words, if the Linux partitioner sees sdb as the drive you want to install to, then GRUB should identify the root of that drive as hd1 and that's where you want to direct it.
You can even install GRUB to a partition on a HDD. If you wanted GRUB in the first partition on the second drive you'd tell GRUB to install to hd1,0. Most of us just install to the root of the drive.

12-17-2007, 10:19 AM	#5 (permalink)
Bartender Mentally divergent Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Chehalis, WA, USA Posts: 1,285 OS: W2K, Ubuntu 8.04	Re: Cannot mount selected partition. I'm not sure I agree with some of Guardian-Mage's comments, or perhaps I just don't understand what he's saying. GRUB can certainly be told to install somewhere else besides hd0. I've done it. If you tell it to install to hd1, it will (should?) install to the second HDD. But which drive does GRUB think is second? It clearly did not install to sda, otherwise the Windows HDD wouldn't have started up without errors because GRUB tweaked the MBR, or without seeing something from GRUB. If it was me, I'd just try again with both HDD's plugged in, take notes, make sure you tell GRUB to install to hd1 if that is the second drive as identified by the Linux partitioner. In other words, if the Linux partitioner sees sdb as the drive you want to install to, then GRUB should identify the root of that drive as hd1 and that's where you want to direct it. You can even install GRUB to a partition on a HDD. If you wanted GRUB in the first partition on the second drive you'd tell GRUB to install to hd1,0. Most of us just install to the root of the drive. Last edited by Bartender; 12-17-2007 at 10:24 AM.