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Thread: Question about multipule hard drives

  1. #1
    Junior Member
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    Sep 2003
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    Question about multipule hard drives

    Hey guys I want to have a seperate hard drive for a Linux operating system and I want to keep my current hard drive that contains Windows XP and all my games and stuff on it. Anyways, I am pretty new to computers hardware and stuff so I was wondering how my computer would act with 2 hard drives in it and how it would work when I go to boot it up. Does a prompt come up asking me which hard drive I want to boot from at start-up? Also, are systems with more than one hard drive more crash prone? Basically, I dont want to re partition my current hard drive because it is to small and I want to get another hard drive for Red Hat Linux, but I have never used a machine with more than one hard drive. Anyways, some help would be appriciated...Also, before I forget, I was looking at this product and I was wondering what it does: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=V133-1146
    lol sorry about this post, I am just a complete newbie when it comes to hardware Thanks in advance...
    If there isn\'t a path, then make a path

  2. #2
    You have to specify a "master" and "slave" hard drive when you do dual hdd's. You should see on your cables on the inside of the computer where your first hard drive is hooked up it actually usually physically says "master" and "slave" and whatnot. You want to be sure to read your manual with your new hard drive so you can set your jumpers correctly. If you don't, you can run into functionability issues and conflicting hard drives both wanting to be masters/boot, etc.

    Also, if you are planning to perhaps install moer than one OS on the same HDD, you can use something like "grub" and "lilo." These are boot-loaders that allow you to choose what OS you want to run at the start of your computer. These can be found at http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ and http://www.icewalkers.com/download/lilo/943/dls/ respectively.

    Hope this helps.

  3. #3
    Senior Member
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    Memphis, TN
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    Just follow what Jehnny said. When you do put a second Hard Drive in there, you'll have to set the Jumpers correctly. Also when You want to boot of of the secondary hard drive, you'll probably have to enter the BIOS and tell it to boot from the other Hard Drive.

    Now if you want to play with linux first, and not worry about all this, I suggest a version of *nix that runs from your windows Partition. There is no disk partitioning to worry about. Just create a file in your Windows Partition about 3GB in size, and this *nix will install there. Then when you want to boot to nix, you just have to put the CD in the CD-ROM. When you want to go back to Windows, just remove the CD and reboot.

    http://topologi-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php
    It will run on your existing Windows/DOS partition in a directory
    named "/tlinux4". This release works on both NTFS and FAT partitions
    which means that you can run it under all existing Windows or dos
    systems.


    You can also run your existing windows program in Topologilinux
    through the windows emulator wine. Just enter
    wine your_program.exe


    Also a great Office package is included, OpenOffice 1.1
    To install copy all files to a temp directory and install it.

    Or you can use KNoppix which boots from a CD. There is no installiation with Knoppix.
    However, I have had problems with Knoppix being a bit slow.
    http://www.knoppix.org/
    =

  4. #4
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    United Kingdom: Bridlington
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    Hi

    I was wondering how my computer would act with 2 hard drives in it
    Watch out for overheating! I assume that your new drive will be 7200Rpm. If you are installing into a tower, try not to put the two drives together, but leave a space.

    Also, look at installing a cooling fan for the drives, or at least improving case ventilation. I usually use a specialist HDD mounting with fans in it, and a large "exhaust fan" at the back....these are the ones that fit into a PCI slot and clear 40+ Cubic feet a minute.

    Cheers

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