Dual Hard Drives???
 

Hello People...And thanks for the site!!!

I know this might have been beaten to death here, but I can't find an answer to my specific question...
System: Duron 1.3GHz, 512 RAM, (1) EIDE 40 Gig HD, (1) EIDE 20 Gig HD, CD-ROM, CD-RW, Floppy, Win98, Red Hat 7.3(about to be installed)...

What is the best setup for my system? Should I set up both Win98 and RH7.3 on the SAME HD, leaving the other HD for back-up; or should I have Win98 on one HD and RH7.3 on the other HD?
In any case, how should I connect my HD's and my CD drives? Both HD's on one controller and both CD drives on the other controller, OR one HD and one CD drive on each controller(HD Master, CD Slave)?

Which bootloader should I use, LILO, or GRUB?

I'm eager to get started learning Linux, but the answers I have found to these questions have only made me more confused.

Once again I apologize for my lack of knowledge...

Thanks,

Robert

Hi Robb,

The setup is simpler if you have win on one disk and Linux on the other. Or to put both on the first disk you could resize the win partition to make room for Linux.. Either way, it's really up to personal preference.

Typically hard drives on the first IDE controller, and CDs on the second with CD-RW as primary master. IDE controllers run at the speed of the slowest device I believe, so bear that in mind if you split them up.

The bootloader is personal preference too. Grub is quite a bit simpler once it's set up, and the installer will do that for you.

Have fun, and welcome to the revolution!

Thanks.
I installed RH7.3 on the 2nd hard drive as a slave and chose to install GRUB on the boot record of the drive, not on the MBR, then switched the drives to make Red Hat as the primary master.
Now to choose which OS to run, I need to enter setup and select the drive from the BIOS Boot Options. Is this the way it should be? When GRUB loads it only shows Red Hat.
Thanks again.
Robert

well done for having linux as the master, as well as sounding better, it's a much nicer approach. you now need to "lie" to windows about where it is in your grub configuration, as can be read about....

http://www.gnu.org/manual/grub-0.92/html_node/map.html

there. then you can have a simple chioce in the grub boot loader as to which drive you wish to boot from. i have to do a very simialr thing in lilo (which is more common and easier than grub) and i say...

and so windows thinks it's actually on a primary drive when it isn't.

Thank you again!
 

So far doing great...
So I have to "lie to Windows"...mmm...a feeling of accomplishment!
I'll keep you guys posted!
Thanks