Some months ago I had a catastrophic crash on my computer due to a failure of the raid card I was using. In any event, I need to rebuild it and I have chosen also to move unto Linux as my primary OS. As I am out of work and not on unemployment, I cannot afford to pay for the rebuild and setup, so I need to do it myself, and have several questions as my experience in computer hardware is very limited. My initial questions concern hard drive configurations. Perhaps you can help me or steer me to website that can help? I have an Abit NF7 motherboard that has two SATA slots and two IDE slots. I have 4 drives to work with: 640 Gb SATA, 80 Gb SATA, 80 Gb IDE, 40 Gb IDE. As I am planning on dual boot, here is what I am thinking: 1. Partition 80Gb SATA into 2 - 40 Gb partitions. Install Linux one partition, and XP on the other. Will this work? Or are there conflict issues? Should I use NTFS or FAT 32 for partitioning? 2. Use 640Gb SATA for data and software installations for both Linux and Windows applications. Will this work? Or does it need to be partitioned, as well? 3. Use 80 Gb IDE for ghosting/backup of the 80 GB OS drive. I realize my hardware resources are very limited, but this is all I have to work with. Any recommendations on how to set this up? Thank you Missouri Mule
