Installing a additional drive

[raysr]

I currently have a dual boot XP/MDK9.2 OS on a 40g hdd. I bought a new 60g hdd. What would be the easiest way to install this with XP on one and 9.2 on the other? If I leave XP on the 40 can I reclaim the space left from 9.2 by deleteing the partitions(9.2)? What about the mbr? Thanks in advance.

Edited December 29, 2004 by raysr

[pmpatrick]

The easiest way would be to get a livecd like knoppix or kanotix and copy the linux files over to your new hard drive after partitioning and formating the new drive in mdk. There's a lot of steps involved. You'll need to edit the fstab and lilo.conf files on the new drive to correspond to their new position on a new drive and run lilo in a chroot environment from the livecd to rewrite lilo to the mbr from your new hard drive linux install.

[raysr]

The easiest way would be to get a livecd like knoppix or kanotix and copy the linux files over to your new hard drive after partitioning and formating the new drive in mdk. There's a lot of steps involved. You'll need to edit the fstab and lilo.conf files on the new drive to correspond to their new position on a new drive and run lilo in a chroot environment from the livecd to rewrite lilo to the mbr from your new hard drive linux install.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking to maybe erase everything on the 40g and use it as a secondary(slave) and do a clean install on both OS. Windows first on the 60g then run Mandrake and set "grub" on the master. Both drives bootable. I understand that "grub" will see the second drive. Would that sort of thing work?

[crispus]

The easiest way would be to get a livecd like knoppix or kanotix and copy the linux files over to your new hard drive after partitioning and formating the new drive in mdk. There's a lot of steps involved. You'll need to edit the fstab and lilo.conf files on the new drive to correspond to their new position on a new drive and run lilo in a chroot environment from the livecd to rewrite lilo to the mbr from your new hard drive linux install.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking to maybe erase everything on the 40g and use it as a secondary(slave) and do a clean install on both OS. Windows first on the 60g then run Mandrake and set "grub" on the master. Both drives bootable. I understand that "grub" will see the second drive. Would that sort of thing work?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That what I would do. Actually, I did do that with 2x 120 GB Western Digitals. Install whatever drive you want to be the master and install Windows. Install the 2nd HD and make sure windows can see it. Before you erase it, copy over any files you want to keep. Then use XP to reformat and partition the 2nd HD (if you want separate partitions). I used XP to create a 32 MB FAT32 partition on the second drive, a 40 MB NTFS partition and then left the rest unformatted.

 

When I went to install Mandrake 10.1 it asked where to install and I pointed it to the unused space on the 2nd drive.

 

All works very well I use the 32MB FAT32 to share files and profiles between the 2 OS's.

 

Regards,

Crispus

[pmpatrick]

Either grub or lilo will see the second drive. When you do the linux install, whatever boot loader you choose will by default be installed on the first master drive mbr overwriting the windows boot loader which is what you want. It should be no problem whatsoever. If you plan on doing a fresh linux install on the old 40GB or new 60GB drive be sure to choose the "Install" rather than the "Upgrade" option. When you do the install, both options may be offered since mandrake may detect the old install but the Upgrade option won't work for you. If you wipe the old drive first, that shouldn't be a problem. With two drives I prefer installing windows and linux on separate drives myself.

[raysr]

Either grub or lilo will see the second drive. When you do the linux install, whatever boot loader you choose will by default be installed on the first master drive mbr overwriting the windows boot loader which is what you want. It should be no problem whatsoever. If you plan on doing a fresh linux install on the old 40GB or new 60GB drive be sure to choose the "Install" rather than the "Upgrade" option. When you do the install, both options may be  offered since mandrake may detect the old install but the Upgrade option won't work for you. If you wipe the old drive first, that shouldn't be a problem. With two drives I prefer installing windows and linux on separate drives myself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for all the replies, that's what I did and it worked great. Grub saw them both and it set up great!