[techtalk] Installing Linux on a second hard drive.

[Wendt,Andrew]

On Sun, 16 Apr 2000, The Russells wrote:

>Anyway.  Currently, according to BIOS, my primary master is my 15GB HD.  I
>don't have a primary slave  or a secondary master.  My secondary slave is my
>CD-ROM.  This seems strange to me, as I don't have a secondary master.
>However, I am a Mac user at heart and don't really get this whole "BIOS"
>thing yet--I have had this PC for about three weeks.

It's not too strange to have a slave alone with no master.

>My question is:  Where should I put my second hard drive, for ease of
>installing and booting to Linux?  Suggestions from friends include making my
>CD-ROM the primary slave and then making the second hard drive the secondary
>master.  Alternately, I could leave the CD-ROM where it is.

With IDE devices, only one of the master/slave can talk to your computer at a
time, on each channel. But your computer is able to talk to a device on the
primary channel at the same time as it talks to a device on the secondary
channel.

So the best place to put it probably depends on how think you'll be using the
machine most.

What I would probably do is set both hard drives to be the master device on
their own channel, and then have the CD-ROM be the slave of whichever hard
drive you feel is less important.

As far as ease of installing... I don't think there will be any problems
booting Linux from a second drive. If you are using LILO, you'll want to
install it in the MBR of your first hard drive, but tell it that Linux is
residing on your second hard drive.

TTFN
Andy