Install Windows After Linux
 

It's a sad day when I have to install Windows in order to play a game, but that day has finally come after probably 4 years. Alright, I have a Gentoo installation on a 40GB HD with another 250GB HD for random things. I'm going to buy another HD sometime in the near future and am wondering what the best way to install Windows is on this HD? I'm thinkin disconnect the other 2 and install Windows on the new one, replace the cables, reboot into Linux, then configure Grub correctly to aim to Windows?

Is this correct, or is there a better(easier) way?

Thanks
Brandon

I like the idea, you can install windows and then use linux rescue disk to reinstall grub it's up to what will be better for you.

Follow your Idea
 

Your idea to take off the other disk is better.
This way you need only to add to grub.conf the line Rootnoverify & Chainloader.
Don't fall in erasing your MBR with windows install.
In case you become crazy choosing to do it first back up your MBR
dd if=/dev/hda of=/<thedirectoryyouwanthere>/boot.img bs=512 count=1

Bye

Walker

I am confused by the wording of these replies, so I'll add another one. I am probably saying the same thing these two are saying, but I'm not sure.

If you will be running your new drive as secondary master (for example), then make sure you install Windows with the drive configured that way, and with the other two disconnected. The MBR is not a concern, when you re-attach the existing drives the already configured MBR will still exist. To me, this sounds like the easiest-to-understand method of getting Windows installed.

If you have a bootable Linux disc (rescue CD, copy of Knoppix, etc etc) and don't mind fiddling around to re-install your boot loader, you can just do the Windows install (which will overwrite your boot loader, as Windows loves to do), and then use the bootable disc to start up a working system to repair with. This method takes less time configuring hardware, but requires a bit more knowledge on your part to install the bootloader correctly.

You haven't mentioned which distro you use, but I imagine a number of rescue discs even offer a quick way to reinstall the bootloader - you could boot your rescue disc before you begin and have a look for an appropriate option. This would give you an idea how quick it would be to take this path.