I've got mandriva 2008 on my primary drive, and I'm planning on installing XP pro on the second drive (both 500g drives) Last attempt: Installed both seperately, used GRUB, got error on selecting XP (don't remember, I think I was missing some .dll). This time, I'm waiting for advice. Help?

generally speaking wintrash must must be installed first on the primary drive (meaning hd0). Linux must also be installed on this drive as it will boot only from the first drive in the array. Probably not important, but was this machine ever set up in raid? What machine is it? I suppose you could install Linux on the second drive and boot it from the bios, however this might prove to be a pain. What I would do is just reinstall Win first on the first drive then Mandriva, and use the second drive for mass storage. Hope this helps.

http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=5231 ^this is the creature. I have no experience in RAID-ing drives, so I assume no. vista is indeed trash, and I have reverted the computer back to Windows XP pro. Still trash, but familiar trash. If possible, I would like to keep the drives seperate. If not, I will use XP/Mandriva on the first drive as advised. Thank you for your assistance.

You can install Windows and Linux on different drives in the same PC. Windows is finicky and has to be installed first, though. Put Windows on the Master (C drive) and Linux on the Slave. I'd reformat both drives, install Windows, then Linux. The Grub installer will do all the heavy work when installing Linux. Don't bother trying to set up partitions, just indicate you want Linux on a different drive, when prompted. Once both are installed, each time you boot up, you will be given a choice of which OS to load. Linux is usually the default. Check back here if you have any questions, but you shouldn't have any problems, its really quite easy. [Modified by: Waxon on July 25, 2008 01:03 AM]