2 Hard Drives LinuX and windows

[NeoTheOne]

I Have 2 hard drives, One 160 Gigs and the other (my master) is 250 gigs, I want to install LinuX on the 160 gig one. I will be installing Kubuntu and i want to know how this can be done easily , First I will install Windows Xp (Fresh Install) then after I will put in the Ubuntu Disk and install that one the second hard drive. Ill go with all the default settings and install it, but after that how will i boot into windows, i dont get the whole Grub shit and etc, can someone help

[P.E.I.]

Dual booting linux and xp is great and you seem to have done your homework and are off to a good start. However there are a few more things to consider. If you want to share files , email, etc then you should have at least one partition formated in FAT. Both linux and windows can read and write to FAT. Linux can read NTFS however it can not write to it. There are apps that can to a degree allow read write to NTFS but not in the way you want to, and the best one will cost you $. I would recomend a windows user create his or hers partitions from within xp. Go to my computer right click on it and select manage then disc management. You will see bars representing your drives, select the second drive and right click on it and select delete. Now right click again and select create a new partition and then enter the size you want. I would suggest 1.5 gigs for a linux swap partition (same has virtual memory in xp) do the same with the rest of the space and do a partition to install linux to 10 to 12 gigs is a good size that will give you space to install more software to. The rest of the drive you can partition in FAT partitions of 32 gigs for data. Also worth mentioning is that FAT has a 4 gig file size limit so you might want to do one if you have the room has ext2 when you install linux but you can do it has FAT for now ext2 has no file size limit (handy for moving large movie isos around. Now after your partitions are created boot into your linux cd or dvd and when it boots up choose manual or advanced for partitioning. Format the 1.5 gig partition has swap and the 10 to 12 gig partition has reiserfs or xfs and set its mount point has / this will insure that it is where linux will be installed has this will make it the root partition. Next choose the software you want, since you have choosen kubuntu this will mean kde has your desktop, if you had choosen Ubuntuit would of been gnome has the desktop, booth are great guis. Follow the prompts and install linux. I post in other forums has betamaxman and wrote this tutorial.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=463549
You may find it usefull after you install kubuntu to share firefox's profiles between linux and xp and to share email between linux and xp useing thunder bird for email in booth OSs. Good luck bear in mind it usualy works first time but sometimes 2 or 3 tries are sometimes needed.

Has for grub for a bootloader it is the best way and it is not to hard to fix the windows one if you decide to dropblinux or use this one to boot windows if need be, to use the loader on the link to boot kubuntu you will need to have kubuntu's grub installed to kubuntu's root partition.
http://gag.sourceforge.net/
But for my money i would simply use grub and be done with it.

[NeoTheOne]

Alright Man Thanxs, also is it possbile for me to install linux first and if i decide i dont want it how will i install win xp on it again , since Xp wont read teh ext3 partition. or will it?(in the xp installing disk)

[P.E.I.]

Yes it will if you install the free ext2 driver.
This thread should help.
http://www.leovilletownsquare.com/fu...php?tid/11536/

If you install linux and then decide you do not want it then you simply reinstall xp right over it after you delete and reformate the drive or partition just has you would a new hard drive, makes no difference what file system was there first.

[NeoTheOne]

Thanks man, I got everything working , I Installed Ubuntu on my 160 gig Hard Drive, windows Xp home on 250 gig , and have grub running like a charm, i have a 1 gig swap partition and 10 gig "global" partiion in which both the OS can save files to.

[P.E.I.]

Great to here it, welcome abord. follow the tutorial if you haven't already and setyp your firefox and thunderbird profiles in both if you want to share email, bookmarks, and other mozilla files has well.