I've run into yet another problem here that i could use some expertise with. I have two hard drives on my system one has xp pro on it the other i have formatted through the format option offered by xp in my computer. I want to install slackware on my second hard drive but when i get to the cfdisk after logging in as root, the only drive it sees is hda. I want to add a partition onto hdb through the fdisk command but this isn't working. why is this and what should i do to proceed. They are set up as primary master and slave with the xp located on the master. Any suggestions?

I also read about 6 months ago when i first thought about doing this that the best way might be to remove primary and add the drive that i want linux on and do an install then later reconfigure the bios to be a dual boot. Is this a better idea or is it a 6 in one and half a dozen in the other kind of thing?

Check the bios. Make sure the second device is getting recognized in the BIOS first, then during the Slack boot check dmesg for any info on the second device (at a console type 'dmesg').

As for the remove primary, call the president, have him come down and build an operating system on your computer, then have your brother format the drive and put QNX on there, finally ending with a format to an HFS filesystem, and then throwing an old drive back in and making it all work...

I'd just set things up like you want from the get go

Cool

Have you tried using cfdisk? To partition hda, you can just enter: cfdisk To parition the second disk, you need to enter: cfdisk /dev/hdd (or hdb, depending)

If I understand your question correctly, you are expecting to see all disks listed in the display, however, only the info for the one disk is being shown. As I indicated above, cfdisk only shows you the current drive info, so if you're interested in viewing another drive, you need to be specific. -- J.W.

Cool

Quote: I want to add a partition onto hdb through the fdisk command but this isn't working.

Sorry - missed a letter. -- J.W.

I have arrived. The instructions weren't as clear cut as i needed then on this amount of sleep. Which partition is the boot? The sizes of the partitions. how to name the partitions. I got it up and going about an hour and a half ago and spent the last hour trying to figure out what to do when it gave me a command prompt.!! Thank you for your responses. To answer my question, i had to delete the partition that was there. also i wasn't typing the /dev/hdb instead i was just using the command cfdisk hence it pulled up the primary. Thanks again for your responses.
I couldn't get through to GW but i might see if jenna is home tomorrow and see if she can build me an os. As far as my brother goes.... I'll just worry about getting jenna over here to build that os for me i'll worry about the format later. =)
On a serious note, Do you guys know of a good beginner tutorial for some basic and i mean real basic linux commands and how to get the initial set up going? ie internet and network stuff.