I know what you mean! I did the same thing on my computer about a month ago with Fedora Core 1. It sounds like your main concern is about partitioning you drives, but if you are installing to a secondary drive it shouldn't be hard. Windows won't even know there is another OS!
When you do install, you will probably need to make several partitions, one for boot, another for usr, home, etc. Usually the installation program can guide you through all of that. (Others who are more knowledgeable about this stuff can give you more details about exactly which mount points need their own partition and how much space is necessary. ) If you secondary drive is already partitioned (for Windows data for example)the installer should still be able to claim the space needed but you'll want to back up your data and defrag the disk first. The (slightly) tricky part is configuring the boot loader. During the installation DO NOT install GRUB (or LILO) to the MBR. That will make it very hard to go back if something doesn't work. Instead choose the option to write the GRUB boot record to the first sector of the linux boot partition. Here are the directions I followed that worked wonderfully for me: "When dual booting between 2000 or XP and Red Hat. (have not tried this with other distro's) During the install when prompted to install the bootloader, either LILO or Grub. choose to install it to the boot partition of the Linux installation, not the MBR. Make sure you create a boot disk during the install, as it will be the only way to boot the OS after the installation is complete. Now boot into Linux using the boot disk you made during the install. Once booted into Linux, we want to extract the Linux boot files to / or whatever directory you would like. To extract to / dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1 (note adjust hda2 to your boot partition, hda2 is typical for a second drive system.) move bootsect.lnx to a floppy. mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy mv /bootsect.lnx /mnt/floppy/bootsect.lnx umount /dev/fd0 Reboot into 2000 or XP copy bootsect.lnx to c: edit the boot.ini file located on c: add to the bottom: c:\bootsect.lnx="Linux" To make Linux the default OS change the default line to: default=c:\bootsect.lnx " I'm not sure what to do for other distros, but for Fedora / Red Hat the install is very user friendly and the method above should work on teh first try. Good Luck! Nicholas Jepsen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2004 10:20 PM Subject: [newbies] Linux Installation to slave hard drive > Here's the deal: I need to keep Windows, but I want to install Linux on my > slave hard drive and set up a dual boot. Can anybody explain to me how to do > this? A friend of mine tried to it on his computer and ended up deleting the > Windows boot record, and he had to re-install Windows and all his software; > needless to say, I don't want that hassle. If somebody can tell me how to do > it right (without messing anything up), I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Persistent heartburn? Check out Digestive Health & Wellness for information > and advice. http://gerd.msn.com/default.asp > > > _______________________________________________ > newbies mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/newbies _______________________________________________ newbies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://phantom.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/newbies
