Right Direction :confused:

[Giarc86]

Ok, I have run out of space on my 250GB and am going to buy a 320 GB tomorrow or Saturday.
Th issue i have is: i would like to put the 320GB in as the Primary drive and the 250GB as the secondary drive. I'm wanting to use the 320 for xp then i want dual boot D) for linux which will be on the 250. I want to partion part of the 250 drive for 2 linux distros and then the remainder for windows as secondary storage.
The thing is i have an idea how to go about it, but wondering if anyone has advice or pointers on how to efficiently do it.
I had a previous install where grub caused a problem. I want to be able to remove the secondary drive and still be able to boot into windows.

Anyone able to shed some light?
Thanks

 

[leakybucket]

The thing is i have an idea how to go about it, but wondering if anyone has advice or pointers on how to efficiently do it.

I had a previous install where grub caused a problem. I want to be able to remove the secondary drive and still be able to boot into windows.

I haven't tried this myself, but if I were to, I'd make a small (100M..?) /boot partition for the [first] Linux distro on the first drive. That way GRUB will have a spot to place it's 1.5 and 2nd stage boot loaders, even if you remove the second drive.

I see trouble with your two Linux installs fighting over which one is going to be the GRUB master... Maybe you can try to install the first Linux distro with GRUB in hda (or sda) [IOW the MBR of your first drive], and then the second one with GRUB in hdbX (or sdbX) [IOW the /boot partition of the second distro]. Then configure the first distro's GRUB to use a chainloader to load the GRUB from the second distro. Might work.

Also note that you might have problems with the either distro picking up LVM PVs from the other distro [might be prudent to call the VGs by different names, if both distros use LVM...], and/or either distro picking up the filesystem label from the other distro, if they use that.

Also, I'd suggest installing Windows first, and then Linux afterwards. Should give you a fighting chance of pulling it off.

Good luck!

 

[wezhira]

this is my setup i have a 200gb drive as master and 250gb as slave i have partitioned the 200gb so i can have 3 linux distros and winxp. The 250gb Partitioned to fat32 i use as storage as i can see it from all 4 operating systems and a huge chunk of my 200gb is set to ntfsm as it was originally a windows machine i use opensuse's grub as it is easier to fix when ever i install another distro which overwrites my grub
any way your best bet is too put all your os on one drive and use the other for storage i think thats the best option . or what ever you decide always install windows first grub/lilo depending on which distro you are gonna use will detect windows it does not matter which linux you install first you can always edit the grub menu.ls file later and add the other distro . if you use opensuse it will detect everything else for you