I have a new hard drive and I want to install Linux on it. I also want to keep Windows on my old hard drive. How will the installation program see the new hard drive? Will I have to format the new hard drive? What do I need to do to be able to dual-boot either Linux or Windows after installation?

Thanks

Generally, the new drive will be seen as /dev/hdb (the old one will be /dev/hda). Yes you will need to format, and maybe even partition, the new drive. To dual boot Linux and Windows you will need either GRUB or LILO, look up 'grub bootloader' or 'lilo bootloader' for more info on those.

Every distribution is different in its installation method so it would be best if you found and followed an installation guide for your choice.

If you post what distro you are going to install, someone here would be able to give better instructions.

I've set up my system to dual boot a couple times, and each time, the linux distro had no problem seeing the windows install and asked if I wanted to dual boot. Typically, you will start the install and it will ask if you want to modify partitions. When you do this, make sure you are looking at the correct drive. Then you will want at least a swap partition and a partition to install to. The swap is often 2 times the size of your memory. The other partition can be the rest of the drive if you like.

Any issues, post here after doing a little googling first. You will get your answer.

F_M

I had problems booting "Damnsmalllinux" from /dev/hdb1.

It runs well from /dev/hda3 beside win on the same disk.

Is it normally possible to boot from /dev/hdbx???

Yep. I have Win98 on hda1, Slackware 10 on hda2, and Vector on hdb1. I can boot into each of these. I can't go into any details on this, I'm still a newbie and don't completely understand the boot process.

F_M

Which boot loader are you using (grub, lilo)? Can you post your config file?

/boot/grub/menu.lst (for grub)
/etc/lilo.conf (for lilo)