need some guidance on installs.
 

Here is what Ive been able to do so far. i have win xp on 1 drive, im installing ubuntu on a 10 gig drive. now i put in a 40 gig drive to put fedora 16 and mandriva 2011 on it. how should i install these so that grub will get all of the installs so i can choose. sorry if i seem a little greedy on the distros but im trying to find something i like so when i feel comfortable running it i can replace windows. any help is appreciated.

Well if you install Ubuntu last after the other two then it will autodetect them and add them to the Grub boot menu.

Also, make sure windows is installed first, if not win ntldr will override the existing grub. In case you didn't know. :)

thanks for the heads up. im reloading windows now then ill install the other os's

OK I can understand installing 2 copies of the same distro with home directory on one partition
ON A LAPTOP as a back up
but why pile up a bunch of distros on one computer ?

im just trying a couple of different distros and seeing what might be better for me. its a extra computer i have so i thought id kinda play a little.