Linux on second HDD

[QuiPetMonDe]

Hi,

On my setup i have 1TB HDD with vista and all my programs etc.
On another 250GB hdd i have all my music - takes up about 160 GB
I was thinking about installing Ubuntu to the smaller hdd but i have a few questions.

I dont want to risk the TB hdd incase something happens, will i still be able to dual boot because of two separate drives? Or will the primary hdd (TB) be the one to boot all the time?

how can i set this up?

How much space would be acceptable for ubuntu if the remainder of the second hdd is not enough?

thanks

 

[sabashuali]

Personally, in order not to risk the Vista drive, I would change it to be the second drive, as in the booting order and make the future Ubuntu drive the first to be booted from. This way, there is no way for you to overwrite the Windows boot loader. All the action will happen on the Ubuntu drive and if you ever wish to revert back to only using Windows, simply change the boot order in BIOS and that's that...

As for installing -
Once you have changed the boot order in the BIOS (and assuming your system is set to boot from the CD drive first), you can start the installation.
With the live CD you can do two things - you can try out Ubuntu without installing at all. If you like it you can install it while using the live cd. If you decide to install at a later stage, either log back in to the live CD and install or simply select to install Ubuntu from the boot menu of the Live cd.

Please reply if you need further help with the actual installation.

However you choose to start the installation, Ubuntu will recognize that you have another drive with another OS on it. This OS will be added to the list of possible systems to boot. Take note of the name which Ubuntu gave the drives (hda or hdb or sda, etc). This is just to make sure that Ubuntu is installing the boot loader to the correct drive (the 250GB one...)

Good luck....

 

[zeus]

I dont think a TB drive can be safe can it! Thats a lot of eggs in one basket! Id get another and RAID it.

What do you want to do with ubuntu? I have usually have about 10gb for an OS. But I dont install programs or download stuff.

I haven't read all of the above post.

If you are dual booting on two different drives you will have to tell the computer upon POST which drive you want to boot from.

ie. Its f10 on my pc. Press that after the beep and then a list of floppies, rom and drives appears. You choose which drive.