2 HDD's & 2 OS's

**Chilaxer** · August 15th, 2003, 03:15 PM

I have a pc and I have 2 hdd's. I want to put windows on one harddrive and linux on the other harddrive. Now how would I work everything out? Would I have to get a boot manager? The HDD I am going to put linux on will have to be set as master or slave? Please help me throught this.

**TOAD6147** · August 15th, 2003, 03:36 PM

Linux has a boot manager already but depending on which Windows you're installing I'd put that on the C:/Primary Master.

**Shakie** · August 16th, 2003, 02:05 AM

I agree with Toad. I would put Windows on your primary HDD and install it first. Depending on your version of Windows, I would then format the space that you want to use for Linux (format through Disk Managment as "free space" or use fdisk and make it "unallocated").

Then install Linux and depending on the flavor, you can allow Linux's GUI to install to "free space" or you will have to use a tool such as fdisk and I think that Slackware uses cdisk to create your home, root, and swap partitions for Linux. (*tip* - Red Hat and Mandrake both offer GUI installations | Slackware and Gentoo along with a few other popular ones are command line install for the most part)

The reason that I would install in the Windows, then Linux order is because Grub or LiLo (Linux boot loaders) are windows friendly, which means that you can pick if you want to load Windows or Linux without much hassel. If you installed Linux then Windows, Windows would overwrite your Linux boot and you would have to use a floppy to boot to Linux untill you manually fixed the boot.ini file in Windows.

I hope you find this information helpful.

**daveleau** · August 16th, 2003, 02:15 AM

Remember to install Windows first. Very important. Otehrwise the Linux boot manager will be corupt and you will never get into Linux. Or at least not until you fix the boot record for Linux.