Hey everyone,

I'm currently running only a single 80GB hard drive with Windows XP, however I want to start Slackin' again as my primary OS and only use Windows for gaming. About to go buy a 200GB hard drive for Windows + Games, and then the current 80GB drive will be for Linux.

I'd rather Slackware not touch the Windows hard drive, and vice versa (except that I'll need a small partition at the beginning of the 80GB for my pagefile). In that respect, can I simply install LILO to the MBR of the secondary HD and choose to boot from that drive in the BIOS boot menu that is accessed on my MB by pressing F11 at post?

That way if I ever need to reinstall Windows (and I will, because it sucks and rots over time), it doesn't ruin my LILO.

Short answer, yes .. but it can be a pain to remember to enter the bios to select the drive required. I currently have to do that because my Promise raid controller isn't supported in Linux.

HTH
Baldrick

Thanks for the reply. I just got done installing the new hard drive, and put a quick Slackware installation on the second one. Luckily my board has the option to hit F11 to go directly to a boot menu where I can select which drive to boot from. Practically a mini-LILO built in, I really like it. Selecting the proper drive there boots Slackware like a charm.

Put Slackware in the the 80GB with lilo etc. etc. Install Windows on the 200GB and let it use the MBR of the 200GB. In Slackware's lilo.conf :

other="windows XP"
root=/dev/sda1
boot-as=0x80

assuming your 200gb is /dev/sda with winXP on SDA1.

This is what I do and it works like a charm. With this setup you can select your HDD in BIOS too if you want (so If you screw up lilo anytime you will still be able to boot windows).