Over one yr ago i tried running a "dual boot" config: Win XP on first HD and Ubuntu on the second. Too often GRUB errs (usually # 17) would occur which required un-install & re-install of Ubuntu to allow access to Win. After several of these disasters i gave up. Ubuntu was removed & not replaced. But hope springs eternal so i'd like to try it again. IMHO there are several choices:

(1) re-install latest & greatest Ubuntu release on second HD determined to continue testing until cause of future possible GRUB err is determined
(2) cowards approach - just run Ubuntu from CD without installing on HD
(3) consider another distro

Any advice will be greatly appreciated since i'd really like to learn abt Ubuntu without tears & fears.

Thanx.
Bob Newbie
Palm Bay, FL

put ubuntu in 1st HDD
in case you are feeling not good about loading windows from grub/lilo then do the other way about
use the windows boot loader.

While installing ubuntu, just ask it to install the boot loader in the partition where the / resides
instead of in the MBR.

load into rescue mode and dump first 1024 bytes of your boot loader of the / partition into a file ; say unix.boot
# dd if=/dev/<the device where the boot loader is present> of=/tmp/unix.boot bs=1024 count=1

copy this unix.boot file to windows partition c:\
(you can either do this by mounting the partition and copying it or by copying the unix.boot to a mem stick and then
booting into windows and copying from the memstick)

edit boot.ini and at the end just add a line
c:\unix.boot = "Ubuntu linux"

where c:\unix.boot is the boot loader dump you had stored ! this way you are not afride of messing up with the
bootloader

Now when you load windows, windows will show a menu asking to chose between linux and windows
whola ! you are there !