I've just started tinkering with Linux and have a question about installing it to my current machine.

I'm running Win 7 Pro and have installed Oracle VM Virtual Box on the C:\ drive which is a 256 GB SSD. I want to create a 15 GB virtual hard drive on a second internal hard drive that has more space on it, and install Zorin 9.1 to it. Currently my C: drive is about 60% full and I'd rather not fill it up past that.

So my question is: Can I run Zorin off of a hard drive other than the C: drive?

Thanks for your consideration.

Dave

You might consider simply partitioning some space in the second internal hard drive so you could install Zorin 9.1 directly to it (no Virtual Box). I currently have Zorin, Windows 7, and Xubuntu running on a hard drive - no interference, each partition is entirely separate.

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Yes you could.
There are a few options.
1 of which was suggested by albinard.
Another option would be to create your vhd's on C\: & move to the external, which may need a link for vbox to find it.
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archiv...er_hard_drive/

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albinard - Great idea! Didn't even think that would work. I have 3 questions though:
Is the install persistent so that changes are kept?
Do you recommend installing guest additions?
Is there a way to share files between windows and Zorin, like a shared folder in VirtualBox?

Thanks.

If you boot from cd or usb, you can do a full install to usb drive as long as the media you are booting with is on a seperate usb drive that you aren't installing to.

The only way you could run Zorin on your "C drive" is using VirtualBox or other virtual software. If you don't want to do that, you need to put it on its own partition.

If you mean by that installing as suggested to a separate partition on another drive then of course it would.

You can share folders between the systems. You can read/write to windows ntfs partitions from Linux but the reverse doesn't work that I know of unless you get some third party software. windows doesn't recognize Linux filesystems.

You keep referring to VirtualBox so I'm not sure if I'm understanding what you want to do.