A hard drive question

[JeffPr]

When I bought my computer my 40 gig hard drive came partitioned into a C: and D: drive. I have my OS and 32 gig on my C: drive and my D: drive is my system recovery drive, I guess they did that so I don't need a CD. I just bought an 80 gig hard drive and I want to know what is going to happen when I install it. Will it come up as a completely new drive, something like F: (where E: is my CD-ROM)? And also, I was thinking about installing another operating system on this hard drive like linux, and I was wondering how difficult it would be to make a little screen come up when you turn your computer on asking you which OS you would like to run, windows XP or Linux. My friend had his one hard drive partitioned this way and I am sure it is a common thing, I just don't know how hard it would be. Any thoughts?

I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. ~ Erwin Schrodinger talking about quantum mechanics

 

[edfair]

Your new drive will normally be assigned as d: and your previous d: will move to e: and the CD will move up a notch.
XP allows you to do some reassignment however.
c: bootable
d: additional drive
e logical on bootable drove
whatever to the last logicals on additional

Partition magic is one way to go with the menu.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[JeffPr]

Thanks for the info. So will I be able to make my little screen appear to chose which operating system I want to run? I know there is a boot sequence option in the BIOS menu that might have something to do with it.

Regards

I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. ~ Erwin Schrodinger talking about quantum mechanics

 

[edfair]

Boot sequence is a hardware choice, not software.

I don't have any experience with Linux boot choices. But for the MS dos stuff, I use boot magic , which comes as part of the partition magic package.

But you will have a choice of boot managers. Do a google search and you'll find several.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.