Possibly the simplest question in this section? (About Installing)
 

Hello everyone,
looking in this section of DSL forum I was hoping for basic instructions on simply: How to do dsl-hdinstall? I'm using the embeddable dsl and I have a second hard drive in my computer; I want to install to the second hard drive. I already have the hard drive erased. Here's my first question: When I open up a terminal and type:
the DSL install script asks me what hard drive I want to install to. How can I tell what the name of each hard drive is? Would my first hard drive be hd0, the second be hd1, and so on? Why am I seeing examples with names such as "hda1, hda2," and so on? Wouldn't it just be hd0, hd1, hd2, etc?
Now my second question: What's the difference between Grub and Lilo? How do I choose which one I want to use?
Last question: I have a 14-year old computer and a new one running Windows XP. I plug the hard drive of the 14 year old computer into the computer with Windows XP and I install DSL onto the old computer's hard drive. If the installer writes the bootlaoder to the MBR of my disk, will it write to the old hard drive or the new hard drive?

Sorry if these questions are really simple, bear with me.

Hi

your first drive is hda, the first primary partition on it is hda1, the 2nd hda2 and so on.
Your second physical disk probably is hdb, with the primary partitions like hdb1 and so on (as an example)

Grub and LiLo are different bootloaders to boot into your installed systems but I can't tell you the advantages. For me lilo is more simple, but this depends on what you prefer.

The bootloader will be written to the first block of the bootable disk in your computer. You may need to try to install the bootloader to the second disk (where you install DSL)... Maybe try to install without the XP disk? (nothing can be scrapped then :D )

You will have to play around with the configuration of the boodloader so that your old box starts properly (maybe try out to create a floppy with a bootloader?)

Just my :twocents: but sounds interesting :D what's your 14 years old box?

:hattip:

Thanks Wargus. I still don't fully understand: Since I want to install DSL to my second hard drive, it would be hdb, and because it's the first primary partition I would tell DSL to install to hdb1, right?

And my 14-year old computer is made by Micron PC. (the company now makes microchips and the old website is down)It's called "Micron Millenia" (with some numbers and letters after that that I can't remember.) It currently runs Windows 98.

Hi

yes I think so.

With

you should see the disks if they are mounted properly during startup. Or you can check with the partition tool, on a console type

or


(if it's available), then it should show your disks and from the size you should be able to recognize. As far as I remember hda is the master and hdb the slave on the same IDE bus... but not sure about that.

I recommend to pull the cable from your XP disk, plug the old-box disk as master (as you need to switch it to master anyway when you mount it in the old box again) and then nothing should go wrong.

:hattip: