I am new to Linux but try different distros from the Linux magazine as i am trying to find a good replacement for windows for my Prostate Cancer Councillor business.
I have just reinstalled Mandriva Spring 2009 to its original USB swing drive, now will it effect my windows OS when plugged into the USB port and i set the bios in this way.
1st boot - CD/DVD drive.
2nd boot - Mandriva swing USB drive.
3rd boot - Windows.
4th the rest
The reason i ask is that i can not afford to loose some sensitive information and all win files. ( this did destroy windows when i got the Mandriva from Mandriva and used it the 1st time)
I installed Mandriva with out the windows hard drive plugged in and at the end of the install i made the boot loader on the 1st patition of the Mandriva install.
Is it ok to proceed.
oldfartdan

I've installed various Linux distros onto USB drives and booted from them with no impact on what's on the HDD whatsoever. I've installed 'manually' and using unetbootin. Unless you boot to the USB drive, then mount the hard drive and do something inadviseable I can't see how there would be a problem.