I want to install Ubuntu 10.04. I already have Windows XP Home w/SP3 installed. The HDD is a Seagate 80g SATA. Right now, Windows and the "stuff" I have installed is using less than 20g. I am wanting to know what "may be" the better choice -- dual booting on same HDD, dual booting on separate HDD, or using WUBI. I do have a second HDD (Seagate 80g ATA (IDE) but I am using it only as my Acronis backup for now. I also have a Kingston 32g flash drive (USB). I am wanting to using the best option that will "most likely" be least problematic. Ideally I guess using two computers! But, I cannot afford that option. Can anyone provide me with reasonable options, as well as, pros and cons. Many thanks.

My choice would be to dual boot from the same drive. Ubuntu doesn't take up much room so splitting the drive 50/50 would give you ample room to grow on both sides. The second drive could become your home directory later if you wanted the additional space. But We have installed literally dozens of XP/UBUNTU dual boots without a hitch in our LUG.

The problem with using USB drive is that it has to be there from that point forward to boot into the other drive. You don't gain anything and you do loose a lot of boot speed.

I would prefer using second OS under Virtualized environment (Using VMPlayer, Virtual box ....other virtualization tool) but only if I have enough required resources (at list Dual Core Processor, 4 GB Ram). This gives me freedom to use both the OS simultaneously.

Otherwise setting up both OS on two separate drives doesn't make big difference until you require second drive for some other purpose and it's better to use two drives to reduce the failure chances of both the OS at same time.

Thanks.

Thanks to all respondents. I kinda guessed what the answer would be anyway. Thought I would ask anyway.

Well there seems to be a bug with Lucid right now. I would suggest you use a virtual environment till the bug is fixed. The update should come sooner or later.