ubuntu install help!!!

Johnh

Baseband Member
Messages
71
so heres the deal...

i have two hard drives, one of them being 200gb and the other being 400 gb.
i also have winxp installed on the 200. i want to be able to dual boot linux (ubuntu) and xp. the 200gb drive is the main drive with most of the programs on it and the 400 is the backup drive which also has my music and other programs that i need on it, (photoshop, flash etc) aswell as a backup folder for my pictures which automatically syncs with the picture folder on the c drive, is it at all possible to install ubuntu onto the 400 gb hd without touching the existing data so that all of the programs for windows still work properly?
 
I dont think you can do it that way. Because the second hard drive is your slave drive and the other the master. By default your boot sequence places the master in front of the slave drive. What you need to do to dual boot is to partition a section of your master drive. Pop the cd in(make sure your cd rom is first in the boot sequence). Than install the new os onto the new partition. Thats how i did it anyways.
 
and this wont effect any of the data stored on either drive? just making sure

and how do i make sure my cd drive is the primary boot drive to install it?

im kinda new to this

thanks a lot!! :-D


John
 
how much free space do you have on your primary drive? If there is enough space, than you can partition like 10 GB or somthing and use it only for the os itself...than linux will recognize both drives and you can continue to use them both for storage.
 
i have almost 90gb free so that should work
im just not sure how to add a new partition to it

if you could explain that would be wonderful!

John
 
go to the control panel-admin tools-computer managment-then it should say somthing like hard drive or disk managment(im at work and cant go there myself). Then you right click your primary drive...http://vistarewired.com/2007/02/16/how-to-resize-a-partition-in-windows-vista/

now i know this is vista but i think its the same in xp. you should be able to figure it out.

edit: you can partition using the linux install cd, but I had nothing but problems when i tryed that.
 
You do not need to use your master drive. You can use any partition on any drive to install linux.

Most versions come with gparted or some other partitioner which is on par with partition magic as far as usability.

No matter which drive you use, you will not harm your existing data as long as you use common sense and do not tell the partitioner to destroy any of your previous partitions.
 
I know he can parition any drive and it would work perfectly fine and not harm anything. But are you telling me that you would honestly put one OS on the master and the other on the slave drive? Why would you do that? So you can go in an change your boot sequence every time you want to use the other os?
 
Using linux, it does not matter which drive it is on, the bootloader, eaither grub or LILO will allow you to select any OS during boot. It would be the same if the OS were on a primary, slave or USB drive. As long as you have installed the bootloader (done automatically in almost any current linux system) it will work fine. Therefore, I reccomend that5 you use whichever drive you have the most space on to dedicate to linux that will not get in the way of programs or data from windows.
 
Ok, so why do i have to change the boot sequence on my old computer with 98 on the master and suse on the slave. I have the bootloader installed.... The fact is..If your bios sees your master drive first(WHICH DOES NOT HAVE THE BOOTLOADER INSTALLED) it will see the windows operating system, and automatically boot to it.

Edit: If you give me a distribution that you are positive will prove me wrong, let me know. I'll try it and if you are right i'll admit it.
 
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