On 19-Nov-08 10:13:30, Mark Rogers wrote:
Barrys linux mail wrote:
I thought windows may try and boot from the linux drive, Thats why i want it erased as drivers will be wrong for desktop
Your PC's BIOS may try to boot the Linux disk (unlikely unless you fit it as a master), otherwise you should have no problems. Windows itself will not be involved in that decision (by the time Windows starts the "who should boot?" has been decided).
I'm pretty sure this is correct (and that was the basis for my earlier response). If the Windows disk is the primary master, and (as is the usual default) the BIOS is configured to take this hard drive as the priority drive to boot from, then that is what will happen and the fact that there is a second hard drive (say either primary slave or secondary master) will not affect this. However (see below) ...
Moving a Windows disk from one machine to another usually results in blue screens due to missing drivers but Linux is much more forgiving and I've never yet had a major problem moving between hardware, so that is an option.
There is one potential problem arising from putting in a second hard drive to a machine which has hitherto only had the one Windows hard drive.
Suppose the existing Windows hard drive (drive 1) has say three windows partitions on it. When Windows boots, these will be registered as "\C:", "\D:" and "\E:". Software which runs from \C: may have been configured to look for other files in \D: or \E:.
Now put in a second hard drive (drive 2). If this has even a single Windows partition on it, this partition will be registered as "\D:", and the parttitions which previously were "\D:" and "\E:" will now be registered as "\E:" and "\F:" and one consequence is that the software which is configured to look for files in "\D:" or "\E:" will continue to look there, but will not find them, since they are now in "\E:" and "\F:" respectively.
It's even worse if the second hard drive has more than one Windows partition (say 3). What then happens is
Hard drive 1 alone: Drive 1: "\C:" "\D:" "\E:"
Drives 1 and 2 together: Drive 1: "\C:" "\G:" "\H:" Drive 2: "\D:" "\E:" "\F:"
At any rate, that was the case on Win98 (the last time I encountered the problem, on behalf of a friend who wanted to put in a second hard drive). I don't know if it applies to XP, 2000, or Vista (and I'd prefer not to need to find out ... ). Solving it was a close approximation to a nightmare. There was a downloadable utility called "Letter Assigner" which allowed you to give a partition a letter-name which was not already in use. So putting right the above mangled situation involved:
1: C G H 2: D E F --> C I E F G H --> C I E F D H --> C I J F D H --> C I J F D E --> C I J K D E --> C F J K D E --> C F G H D E 1: C D E 2: F G H
i.e. like the old "15 puzzle" where 15 numbered tiles on a 4x4 board have to be shuffled (using the one available empty square) until they are in numerical order. Any offers for a quicker solution to the drive-letter puzzle above? !!!
That being said, note that it is described in terms of 2 hard drives which both have Windows partitions. I don't know what rthe situation is if the second drive has Linux partitions: will these also occupy "letter space"?
I would suggest putting the disk in and seeing what problems you have then resolving them if necessary, but if you want to wipe the drive before you start then the Ubuntu Live CD should allow this (use System -> Administration -> Partition Manager to delete all the HDD partitions), or download something like dban (CD image, burn to disk then boot from it) to securely wipe any disk.
Note that you do not need to format the disk, just remove the existing partitions.
-- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
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