I have 2 sata hard drives,a 250gb for Windows XP Home Edition HD 0

The other one is a 80 gb sata harddrive with Ubuntu Dapper HD 1

Boot loader is Grub /MBR

When I install PCLinusOS I want to use 40gb of HD 1 and install the bootloader to the bootsector and chainload PCLinuxOS from the grub menu.lst

My current Ubuntu partitions are
sdb1 linux
sdb2 extended
sdb3 empty
sdb4 empty
sdb5 swap

When I install PCLinuxOS will it install to sdb3 or to a new partition

When I edit grub to chainload I will use hd1,? What should the ? in hd1 number be

Windows chainloader as follows
Title Windows XP
root (hdo,1)
save default
make active
chainloader +1

Do I need to have the save default and make active in the PCLinuxOS chainloader

What am I forgetting to address during the install. I would like to make this as smooth as possible

This will be my first chainload so all help I can get will be appreciated

Ray

- Depends on the setup. I'm pretty sure it asks you where you'd like to put it. If you want it to sdb3 specifically, you may need to select a "manual partitioning" option during the setup.

- If I remember this correctly, and I probably do, GRUB starts the numbering from zero. That means: first disk is disk number zero, second disk is disc number one and so on -- and first partition on a disk is partition number zero, second partition is partition number one etc. This means that the first partition of the first disk is (hd0,0) and second partition of the first disk (hd0,1) whereas second disk's first partition is (hd1,0). Got it? So, if it's sdb3, in GRUB you write it as (hd1,2. hd1 because it's second partition (first would be zero) and partition number two (2) because it's the third partition (first = 0, second = 1, third = 2). Of course this all depends on which partition the /boot of PCLinuxOS eventually is, but you said you'd like to put it on sdb3 so that's how it would go. If you decide to put it someplace else, just put the GRUB entry correctly like adviced.

- Option "savedefault" means that if you boot an operating system that has the mentioned option in it's configuration, GRUB remembers that it's the default one to boot, until you boot another OS with "savedefault" option too, or if you just set some fixed number from the list. This sounds complicated, so let's put it this way: the first entry in the boot list is entry number zero (GRUB starts to list numbers from zero, remember?). Second entry (from the top, of course) is number one. Third entry is number two and so on. You can set a certain time in GRUB (by setting some value to the option "timeout"), after which GRUB automatically boots a default choice from the list. If you don't specify what the "default" option's value is (leave it off the file completely), it's the same as if it was zero - which means the first entry in the list. If you specify "default 0", it's the same. If you specify "default 1", GRUB would then boot the second entry from the top, if the waiting time ran out (or, if the time is not set, this doesn't do anything). Now in addition to specifying some fixed OS from the list you can set GRUB to boot the last OS that was saved as default - in this case you set "default saved" (IF I'm right -- you may want to check this!). That means GRUB will boot the last entry you booted that has the option "savedefault" in it.

You can then have let's say 10 entries in your list, boot whatever you want and have two entries where there is "savedefault" in their configuration. If either of those is booted once, it's booted every time after that (no matter what other operating systems you boot otherwise) except if you boot the other option which also has "savedefault" set - after that boot, that new "savedefault" OS is the one that GRUB boots by default. The other entries where there is no "savedefault" don't count. And if you only have one of those that is saved as the default choice, it's the one that's booted always unless you chooce otherwise. Got it? This is very good if you have for example Windows on the machine, want it to be the default to boot unless touched, maybe because somebody else uses that and doesn't want to hazzle around with Linux stuff. You may have some tool automatically update GRUB's list every time you remove or add new kernels or boot entries, and it doesn't matter where in the list that Windows section (for example) would be (it can move up and down the list if it's automatically updated), it's still the default boot choice because it's "savedefault"ed. Got the idea?

I don't have much knowledge about "chainloading", I have had the image that it's needed when GRUB chainloads another bootloader that loads some OS. In Windows' case it's probably needed? I've never used it, but then again, I don't dual-boot, I use one OS that can do everything I need

Check this site out, in addition to the official GRUB website:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux..._Booter_Floppy

Triple boot enabled

Thanks for the help

Ray