How to install Linux on a slave drive
 

I run XP on a 40 gig HDD, I have just installed a 40 gig HDD as a slave it has been erased to DoD level I would like to run a Linux system on the slave and use it as I would windows XP, the slave shows as fully working but it does not show in My Computer and has no letter assigned to it my main drive is "C" and DVD drive is "D". the windows drive is a NTFS file system and the driver file system is 32bit I think?
I have UBUNTU as a trial on a CD.
I have spent the whole afternoon reading different opinions on how to do this and am always confused as it is taken for granted that a newbie already knows so much, I don't.
Do I have to format the drive first, and how do I do that?
How do I get a Linux system onto that drive?
How do I get easy access to both drives?
I do hope someone has the patience to help

No the drive can be formatted during install.
1 thing you have to be careful of is the fact that both drives are identical as far as size, so it can be easy to write to the wrong drive.
Also you said windows cannot see the drive check it in disk management.
Also during install linux does not label drives the same as windows, It will see your drives as sda & sdb & so on.
Good Luck

Hello

since you are using ubuntu live cd you can use gparted on the tools menu to view the partitions on it and modify them.

!!!!!!!!!!be warned back up all important stuff before you do anything.!!!!!!!!!!!

then if your slave disk is showing up as sda/sdb etc in gparted then linux can be installed on your system alongside winxp

but my personal exper with ubuntu is little bad. it gives little less control on how you install your system. i prefer debian which i suppose with little effort can be installed even by newbie, all depends on your requirements with the linux distribution of your choice.

linux partitions cannot be accessed by windows but windows partitiions can be accessed by linux. 20 gb of linux partitions i suppose would be more than enough if you dont have any special considerations.

If you are looking for installation manuals then they differ distribution wise on linux systems you may have to probably google for each of them.

if you are not sentimentally attached to win and want to learn about linux systems then i recommend format hardrive for fresh xp install with multiple partitions leaving atleast one partition about 15-20 gb for linux and then install your favourite distribution on it. try practicing and googling each time you would learn something.

if stuck somewhere search for solutions on google, the faq of the distributions installation or just post it here.