Best Way to Multi-Boot?

[Steve Holmes]

On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 02:52:15PM -0700, Stephen wrote:
> well depending on what drives you are using for OS you can dual-boot
> with both OS's on the same drive then use the remaining drives for
> data. but my preference is to give windows its own drive and a
> "untouched" boot-sector just in case i do something silly to grub. and
> then put the Linux drive and grub on its own as well. then use a singe
> drive for data between the two.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do.  For now, I wanna leave my brand
new laptop with windows on it since that is my only copy of windows 7
plus the HP junk that enables some of the extra control keys like
audio volume and the launch of selected applications.  Then I could
just plug in the drive to my USB port and boot from the selected BIOS
boot menu and go from there.  If I boot with a USB stick that has an
ISO for my distro (Arch Linux) on it, the machine comes right up
through grub, I hit the enter key to go on and works fine from that
point.  It just won't with this USB drive on its own.

Ultimately, it would be just simpler to install Linux right on the
original drive and go with a VM or something; I've done that many
times before without much trouble.  But I've never done it on a
removable USB drive like this.  I would also love to have a Portable
Linux I could drag around and plug into any computer I walk up to
<smile>.