The machine is MSI Titan GT80 SLI.
It has 4 SSDs. The first one is the primary boot drive that runs Windows 10. The second one is a clone of the first one and is used for disaster recovery.
The 3rd SSD is data and #4 SSD is the clone of number 3.

The first 3 SSDs are 2280 PCIe and the 4th SSD is 2.5" SATA III.

How can I point the Linux installation not onto the primary boot drive which is Windows 10 which I want to keep but to the 4th SSD, it's that 2.5" SSD in the computer.

I can designate the drive as a bootable drive with the Windows bootloader.

The other possibility is making the 2.5" SSD the primary boot drive that has Grub bootloader configured to optionally boot primary Win10 or mirror Win10 SSDs.

I am going to take a stab in the dark because all distros do not use the same installer, most "main Line" ones have a section at the bottom of the window that is asking about where to or how to install, it says "do something else" this is where the user can manually set up the partitions, and where to install grub is in there too, make sure it is pointing to the place where you want it installed as well.

If you do not see that then get back to LQ and post what distro you are installing for further assistance can be given.

the distro is going to be either RHEL around version 7 or possibly whatever is closest to it, maybe Fedora but Ubuntu is a strong possibility as well.

I also need to enable the LVM so the distribution I select has to include the Logical Volume Manager.

If you can be more specific about how to pick the target drive, would be great. I prefer RHEL but can live with Fedora or Ubuntu.

red hat and knock off's --> https://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/I...oning-x86.html


https://access.redhat.com/documentat...kpartsetup-x86



How to Install CentOS 7 Step by Step with Screenshots

for the distro you decide to install "google" the how to install "place distro name here" for more detailed instructions.

If you prefer RHEL then try CentOS 7 which uses LVM by default. It also defaults to xfs which is ok but it does have one major limitation that it can not be resized smaller. You can select ext4.

To pick a specific drive you need to select manual partitioning and specific steps depend on the distribution. As stated Ubuntu and its derivatives typically label manual partitioning as "Something Else" Referring to the installation manual for the distributions should show those steps.

CentOS 7 seems like the winner then.

Remember, Red Hat's documentation also applies to CentOS. As, other than the branding, CentOS is basically RHEL (Red Hat).

Also, both CentOS and Fedora use anaconda as their installation program.

Just one more thing; While CentOS is a very stable system, it might not be the best choice if you are new to Linux and particularly if you're installing it onto a laptop/netbook. Just saying.

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