Install Ubuntu alongside Win 8.1 on separate physical drives and dual-boot?

Solution 1:

Yes you can install ubuntu on a different drive. but you need to know something before you proceed. new EFI systems these days (or UEFI) has Fastboot/General-optimization option. that makes the PC boot faster. but if you turn this ON and install ubuntu on a different drive, you will get the grub prompt saying "no such device" error. Reason is that Fastboot/General-optimization only recognize one HDD at boot time. I'll explain the error you will get, assume that your windows disc is sda and ubuntu disk is sdb.

• sda1 recovery (windows)
• sda2 EFI
• sda3 Windows
• sdb1 ubuntu
• sdb2 home
• sdb3 swap

in this situation... EFI firmware can read the grub EFI entry in the sda2 partiton but it leads to sdb1 disk and fastboot is ON, you will surely get "no such device" error. So you have to turn off fast boot option in EFI firmware.