Two physical drives - one for Windows XP and one for Mepis Linux?
 

I have Windows XP installed on my drive C:. I would like to add a second physical hard-drive, and install Mepis Linux on it. At boot time, I would like GRUB or some other bootstrap loader program to let me choose between Linux and XP. Is this possible?

I'd love to simply switch to Linux, but I have 3 programs that I need to use that have no Linux equivalent, and so I need to retain XP. I could run vmWare on a Linux host and run XP as a virtual machine, but my drive C: is too full and would require some data shuffling. It seems easier to add a second hard-drive to the system.

Any thoughts?

Yes it is possible, you can either setup GRUB on the mbr of the C drive or its possible to use NTLDR (the microsoft bootloader) to choose your OS.

RE: Dual Drive Question
 

Thanks for the info. I'll give it a try.

With two physical drives, I recommend OSes and Apps on one, and data on the other. Format the data partition FAT32 for easy sharing between Windows/Linux.
A variation is Linux on ~15Gb partition on the new drive---and the data partition on the rest. When everything is working, you can copy Windows data to the new data partition, and then set up more shared data space on the first drive

If buying a new drive, get AT LEAST 80Gb

Before setting up dual boot, make sure you have your Windows install disk at hand. Sometimes, there is trouble and you may need to restore the Windows mbr. One way to avoid this risk is to start with the linux bootloader on a floppy. You can always put it on the first HD later.

I would mention BACKUP before starting any of this, but you already know that.....;)

some help for this newbie
 

Greetings

I have two 80 drives on my hp laptop and very easy to switch from one os to another but now I need the linux drive for data on my windows and I can't seem to repartion or do anything witht the linix drive . any sugestions???
thanks
Michael

You have jumped into another thread (an old one). Better to start new threads.

You can use free tools like GParted or QTParted--or good old Partition Magic.

Did you want to keep Linux somehow?