installing linux onto another HD than windows 1

[RyanRamsey99]

question. i have a computer with two drives. i have windows on one drive and i want to install redhat linux on my slave drive, (which has nothing on it).
would i still need to partion or repartion the drive to get linux on that drive??

i don't really feel like messing witht the drive that has windows on it and i just want to be able to install linux on the hard drive with nothing on it.
if anyone has any suggestions/tips/advice please let me know.

thanks,
ryan

 

[estesflyer]

hehe. I know exactly how you feal. just a week ago, i was in your shoes.

this is what i did

i took out the windows drive, put in the blank drive.

then i used a win98SE boot disk to get into fdisk, and i viewed all the partitions. then i deleted the windows partition, then i shut down mah comp, booted it up again, and went back into fdisk. then i created a logical dos partition (or whatever the first option was in types of partition menu list) and made it 50% of the usage.
then i installed linux, and chose to use remaining disk space to create a new partition for linux. all you do now, is in the bios, tell it which drive to boot from. That or manually take out that little pin thing, and put it in the other drive (that little thing that slides over your pins, to tell the computer if the drive is master, slave, etc...)
btu that is what i currently do. since i do not have enough space in my computer to have two running hardrives, a zip drive, floppy, and a cd drive. so i manually switch the disks.

anyhow, dont forget to take out your windows hardrive and put in the blank one before you mess w/ fdisk. otherwise, all your windows data and files/whatever else you have on your drive, will be whiped out.

Hope this helps


- Rusty

 

[estesflyer]

one more thing, if you are just starting out w/ linux, so am I. I would be happy if you tell me what you learn, and i will in return tell you what i have learned.


ciao!

- Rusty

 

[Guest_imported]

That sure sounds like the hard way. Removng the Windoze drive is ok, extra safety, but not required. Simply use fdisk, cfdisk, or even diskdruid to partion the Linux drive. Usually at least a Linux Native and a Linux Swap partition. Setup usually will allow you to decide where to install Linux. Using a second IDE drive on the same cable as the first, fdisk /dev/hdb and set up the native and swap partitions. Then setup/install hdb1. if you have your first Drive on the same cable as your CD and the second hard drive on seperate cable, it will be fdisk /dev/hdc or fdisk /dev/hdd.

Mostly, the setup progams will guide you through that

 

[Comtech]

The latest versions of RH and Mandrake will automatically ask you where you want to install, how big you want the partition, where you want the swap, and how big, and even more, right in the installation GUI.
It's totally painless, and you don't need to partition BEFORE installing, although, if you want the remainder of the HD accessable to Windows, then partition the drive first, using plain old fdisk, then run the Linux install to repartition a portion of the drive for Linux.
There is no 1024 cylinder limit in the latest kernel versions. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[ktighe]

Jim's right. Mandrake is easy to install. It'll put linux wherever you want. Disconnecting the windows drive is not necessary. You just need to make sure that lilo or grub (boot loaders) are installed in the primary boot sector of the main hard drive (windows hd). Then you'll be able to choose which os to boot up.
Kevin

 

[Comtech]

If you don't want a dual-boot setup, just remove your windows HD from the system before you install MDK8.
The MDK8 installer automatically puts lilo on the MBR of your Primary HD, sometimes not something you want, but if you wish ALL your HD's/partitions available in Linux, then leave the HD in, and let lilo install.
I would recommend the Lilo GUI loader, it's smooth, grub can be a pain, and lilo can be edited through the GIU of whatever desktop manager you choose. (Gnome is my fave, but lots of newbies prefer KDE, and the MDK8 installer lets you choose up to 11 different ones (according to them)). Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[RGC]

I have Win98,Win2K,BeOS,& SUSE7.2 all runinng on the same system. The nice thing about my setup is NO boot loaders. Each OS has its own removable HDD. I had old 3&4 gig HDDs laying around, and removable bays run about $10.
rafales@alltel.net

 

[ktighe]

Stupid question: what's a removable bay? do you mean you put your hd's in open cd bays?
Thanks