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Two hard drives one Linux - can it work?


heather1113
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What I'm wondering is I have 2 hard drives installed right now:

 

hda - Windows, NTFS, 40GB, 7200RPM, IDE

hdb - Linux, 5400RPM, IDE

 

and I want more space for Linux so I wonder if I can format the drives and install Linux over both drives like maybe put /home on hdb and everything else on hda.

 

The only thing is then I may have to put up with an unhappy roomate/sister who likes using Windows and cannot not be easily convinced that Linux is better and in some ways easier. So my other option is having Windows on only 15 or 20GB of hda and giving Linux (only one distro, PCLinuxOS) the rest of hda and all of hdb.

 

Is either scenario possible? I should probably note that the computer is mine and I spend the majority of the time on it.

 

Thank you

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Simple answer is absolutely! You just need to partition the drives to reflect what you need and then point your mount points to the relevant partition. For example: if your second drive is /dev/hdb then you mount /home to /dev/hdb

 

You can also create a partition of whatever siae for windows - although you'll need to install it first as it doesn't like being installed alongside another OS

 

I think the Mandriva installer has al lthe tools you need if you install in "expert" mode.

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Different speeds? It shouldn't be a problem. Just be sure to make your swap partition on the faster one (hda in this case)... and /, /boot if you make it, too. It will load and work faster this way, however, the opposite would work too :banana:

 

As a side note, if the drives are on the same IDE channel, maybe you won't be able to transfer files from one to another. It's because of the IDE limitation, you can't read and write simultaneously on the same IDE bus channel. I say maybe because I don't know if it's possible via a buffer or... whatever.

 

Anyways, if they are on different channels, the better.

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So, either way this will work whether or not they are on the same IDE bus channel?

 

What I had initially planned to do is put / and swap on hda and /home on hdb but now I'm starting to wonder if I may get better performance with a more complex partitioning scheme.

 

Also as a side note, my sister is now using Linux full-time with no complaints. What happened was I told her that she could use Windows or Linux, whatever she was more comfortable with. But I set her up with a user acct in Linux, copied all her Firefox and Thunderbird stuff and basically made it really easy for her to use Linux. Also since I already had Crossover Office she can continue to use Microsoft Office. Well she hasn't booted over to Windows yet and is even liking the games (Patience, Supertux etc.).

Edited by heather1113
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paul:

Yep, but AFAIK not simultaneously, that's the reason why I can't burn CDs on-the-fly: my CD burner and my CD-ROM drive are both on the same IDE channel. Maybe the IDE standard has changed a lot these years (my PC has ages) , but better have both drives on different IDE channels, just in case...

 

heather1113:

Your partitioning scheme is totally ok. swap and / on hda, the 7200 rpm one, then /home on hdb, just what I meant (I notice you did mean that at first... sorry then!). The fastest would be having all of the partitions on hda, but you want to use both drives with linux, right?

Well, you could do that, make hdb mount on a dummy mount point like, say, /mydata, then you would be able to use hdb only to store files...

 

Good for your sister! Supertux is addictive... have her try Scorched 3d... or Xbill LoL. Tell her she's welcome ;-)

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heather1113:

Your partitioning scheme is totally ok. swap and / on hda, the 7200 rpm one, then /home on hdb, just what I meant (I notice you did mean that at first... sorry then!). The fastest would be having all of the partitions on hda, but you want to use both drives with linux, right?

Well, you could do that, make hdb mount on a dummy mount point like, say, /mydata, then you would be able to use hdb only to store files...

 

Good for your sister! Supertux is addictive... have her try Scorched 3d... or Xbill LoL. Tell her she's welcome  ;-)

 

Your idea about using hdb for something like /mydata is great so I think that is what I'm going to do. This way I can put my music and videos and such on that drive and everything else on the nice fast one. It just sounds like the safer option.

 

The only thing, and maybe this sounds ridiculous but I'm a little nervous about getting rid of Windows completely. I never use it but I always know it's there...just in case. Oh well, it's using precious hard drive space and it doesn't deserve the faster drive so it's out of there.

 

Now I just have to figure out a way to save all my data which includes 4 1/2 GB music and 7.5GB of videos (episodes of a show I like courtesy of Bittorrent) without using a billion CDRs. I should have gotten the DVD-RW drive when I had the chance.

 

I apologize if I should have started another thread for this but what do other people do who have a lot of data to transfer but not a lot to transfer it with in a circumstance like this?

 

And also thank you guys for answering my many questions.

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DVD-RW is really cheap now. Doing a price scan in Newegg, I can get one for under 50 dollars easy including shipping.

 

If you have a spare computer, you may borrow it to temporary house your data while you are rearranging your hard disk space.

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DVD-RW is really cheap now. Doing a price scan in Newegg, I can get one for under 50 dollars easy including shipping.

 

If you have a spare computer, you may borrow it to temporary house your data while you are rearranging your hard disk space.

 

Unfortunately I don't have a spare computer or spare money for that matter. The city I live in seems to be having a job shortage right now. But I looked at that site and with very little effort I found this

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16827152047

 

that's much less that half of what I was expecting to pay. Had I bought one when I was going to a couple of months ago I would have paid around $130. Thank you for pointing out that great site.

 

I think I may need to put this off for a while at least until I have some money to do it right.

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