Hi.
I need advice about formating a new slave HD on my system. The
situation's not quite that clear-cut though.
Background info:
My Master Hard Drive currently has WIN XP loaded on it, that's my
operating system for now.
On my new Slave Hard Drive I want to install a distribution of
GNU-LINUX, in order to learn it.
Once I am comfortable using the new OS, I will wipe clean the Master
Hard Drive and install LINUX on it as my new OS.
I also want to move a lot of files (not programs) to the new hard drive
now, in anticipation of my formating the main HD.
The original, master, hard drive is 120gig. The new one is 250gig. IDE.
This should maybe be in two different threads, but hopefully I can
figure everything out together:
1) The new hard drive is hooked up, and it's recognized in the BIOS, but
apparently Windows hasn't assigned it a drive number.
Is this because the HD hasn't been formatted yet?
2) Should I try to format the new drive with the active OS (WinXP), or
do I have a choice at this point.
I'm wondering about formatting, between the two different Operating
Systems.
Knowing nothing yet of LINUX, I don't know if the Operating Systems
can read each other's directories.
I think I can run LINUX on the second hard drive if it's formatted by
WinXP, and I expect that the master hard drive will be formatted by
LINUX when it's time to format the main drive and install LINUX on it.
3) Which leads me next to wonder if the slave hard drive will then have
to be emptied, and reformatted also, by the new reigning Operating System.
5) How does WinXP format new hard drives? I can't get my Help in WinXP
to open, and I'm confused by the online information because a lot of it
is old and referring to older operating systems, or to partitions, and
so on.
Does all of this remind you of a specific tutor someplace? If so, I'll
be very grateful for the URL to the guide if it has advice that pertains
to my situation.
Thanks very much for any help here.
Greg P.
The NOSPIN Group is now offering Free PC Tech
support at our newest website:
http://freepctech.com
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