Hard Drives and Disk drives - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Gatorade Frost · 06-23-2005, 10:32 AM

I'm building my computer today (and hopefully the MoBo works)

Anyway

I've got two questions in regards to my Hard Drives. I've got three hard drives (Two 250 GB SATA Hard drives and a 40 GB normal hard drive). One 250 Hard Drive is going to have Windows XP Pro, the other Windows XP Pro 64bit, and the 40 is going to run Linux on it.

My question is how I'll be able to install each product on each hard drive, and basically boot options. I'd rather not have my 40 GB hard drive take control of my computer as the main hard drive, but I intend to have an operating system on it.

When I do my installing should I just have one hard drive plugged in each time I do this, installing each product individually to the different drives or will I be able to easily designate where I want each OS to go?

And also I have two DVD drives (DVD burner and DVD player). Do I need to set one to Master and one to Slave or does it not really matter?

Thanks for the help guys

maul · 06-23-2005, 11:36 AM

Hey,
I have no experience with installing windows XP 64 bit, but i currently have Windows XP pro and Slackware linux installed on 2 seperate drives. I suggest installing wondows first because it is more fussy than linux and then installing linux. I also prefer to let linux manage the boot options, you can use LILO or GRUB either boot loader is good. The other way is to let the windows boot loader do it which requires you to copy the first 512 bytes of your linux partition and move it to your C: drive and edit the BOOT.INI file to point to it. I prefer the first option and it has worked flawlessly for me. You can find tonnes of guides for dualbooting on www.linuxquestions.org

hope this helps.

skaven · 06-23-2005, 07:24 PM

I second maul's suggestion to let Linux handle the booting. There isn't a performance issue with putting your primary bootloader on a Linux partition. Linux is quite good at keeping up with multiple boot partitions.

My suggestion for installation:

1. Install Windows on one 250GB disk (alone)
2. Install Windows 64 on one 250GB disk (alone)
3. Install Linux on the 40GB disk (with the other 2 disks plugged in).

That way the Windows partitons don't step on each other's feet, and the linux installer should hopefully boot both of them smoothly.

06-23-2005, 10:32 AM	#1 (permalink)
Gatorade Frost Rookie	Hard Drives and Disk drives I'm building my computer today (and hopefully the MoBo works) Anyway I've got two questions in regards to my Hard Drives. I've got three hard drives (Two 250 GB SATA Hard drives and a 40 GB normal hard drive). One 250 Hard Drive is going to have Windows XP Pro, the other Windows XP Pro 64bit, and the 40 is going to run Linux on it. My question is how I'll be able to install each product on each hard drive, and basically boot options. I'd rather not have my 40 GB hard drive take control of my computer as the main hard drive, but I intend to have an operating system on it. When I do my installing should I just have one hard drive plugged in each time I do this, installing each product individually to the different drives or will I be able to easily designate where I want each OS to go? And also I have two DVD drives (DVD burner and DVD player). Do I need to set one to Master and one to Slave or does it not really matter? Thanks for the help guys __________________ I got in a fight one time with a really big guy, and he said, "I'm going to mop the floor with your face." I said, "You'll be sorry." He said, "Oh, yeah? Why?" I said, "Well, you won't be able to get into the corners very well." Emo Philips

06-23-2005, 11:36 AM	#2 (permalink)
maul Upright Location: New jersey	Hey, I have no experience with installing windows XP 64 bit, but i currently have Windows XP pro and Slackware linux installed on 2 seperate drives. I suggest installing wondows first because it is more fussy than linux and then installing linux. I also prefer to let linux manage the boot options, you can use LILO or GRUB either boot loader is good. The other way is to let the windows boot loader do it which requires you to copy the first 512 bytes of your linux partition and move it to your C: drive and edit the BOOT.INI file to point to it. I prefer the first option and it has worked flawlessly for me. You can find tonnes of guides for dualbooting on www.linuxquestions.org hope this helps.

06-23-2005, 07:24 PM	#3 (permalink)
skaven Insane Location: Austin, TX	I second maul's suggestion to let Linux handle the booting. There isn't a performance issue with putting your primary bootloader on a Linux partition. Linux is quite good at keeping up with multiple boot partitions. My suggestion for installation: 1. Install Windows on one 250GB disk (alone) 2. Install Windows 64 on one 250GB disk (alone) 3. Install Linux on the 40GB disk (with the other 2 disks plugged in). That way the Windows partitons don't step on each other's feet, and the linux installer should hopefully boot both of them smoothly.