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I got two Hardrives, both Westeren Digital 80 GIG's (One is on 7200 RPM, the other 5200 RPM)

Anyways, I want to make one of the HD's as a slave and one the master.

On my Slave HD, I'm going to make two partitions (20 GB for Ubuntu, and the rest for just storage).

Now, I know how to make a slave drive and all. (I would of already did it, if it wasnt for me loosing a jumper).

Basically, I want to know, dose master and slave drives work like parition. Like can I install a bootloader, and I can boot into which drive I want?

I also want to know what format, I should make my slave partition for storage.

If your confused, let me put it like this:

-------------------------------------------

1) Two Hardrives

2) 1 80 HD at 7200 RPM (Westeren Digital)

3) 2 80 HD at 5200 RPM (Westeren Digital)

4) The 7200 RPM is going to me my master drive. It's what i'm using now, and it's on Windows XP Home.

5) I want to partion the 5200 RPM drive into two partitions. One 20 GB for linux and the rest for Storage or Backup's.

----Questions----

1) How would I access my slave drive from when I'm booted into my master drive? Specificly, I wan't to access my storage parttion my slave drive. I'm guessing I have to make the storage partion in NTFS format?

2) On bootup, what drive does my automatically boot into? Slave Or Master? I'm guessing Master. But is there a way I can choose what drive I can boot into?

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You can set which hard drive boots in the Bios. If you format the slave drive with FAT32 the storage partition can have read/write access for both WinXP and Linux. I think you need to partition the slave drive that has Linux to three partitons. You will need a swap partition (2GB) then a partiton for Linux (root) and finally your shared partition. Check with the Linux crew on how to set it up.

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You can set which hard drive boots in the Bios. If you format the slave drive with FAT32 the storage partition can have read/write access for both WinXP and Linux. I think you need to partition the slave drive that has Linux to three partitons. You will need a swap partition (2GB) then a partiton for Linux (root) and finally your shared partition. Check with the Linux crew on how to set it up.

So Storage Partition on the Slave Drive = Fat 32

See, thats what I used to do, I set the master drive to boot first.

However, It's a pain cause if I wanted to let teh slave drive boot, I first had to get in bios and set it so slave drive boots first.

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You can set which hard drive boots in the Bios. If you format the slave drive with FAT32 the storage partition can have read/write access for both WinXP and Linux. I think you need to partition the slave drive that has Linux to three partitons. You will need a swap partition (2GB) then a partiton for Linux (root) and finally your shared partition. Check with the Linux crew on how to set it up.

So Storage Partition on the Slave Drive = Fat 32

See, thats what I used to do, I set the master drive to boot first.

However, It's a pain cause if I wanted to let teh slave drive boot, I first had to get in bios and set it so slave drive boots first.

That's one reason I bought one of these. Just use a switch to select drive. If you can find one it works great. I ahven't seen any listed but you can make one yourself. I'll have to search for the article on building your own.

NickLock hard drive switcher

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Ok, one extra question.

Why are the jumpers used? Is it to identify which is master and which is slave?

I was reading about master and slave drives, and it seems like, there is not much of a difference. The master is the drive that boots first.

So do I need jumpers to differientce the difference between master and slave? Can I just set in the bios, the drive I want to boot first?

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I had the same exact setup you had, and i never had a problem booting. UBuntu came with some booting program that let me choose between it and windows.

If you just install Windows on the Master drive then fdisk the Slave drive leaving it "raw" you can install Linux to the slave and it will create the partitions plus install Lilo or Grub which will allow access between the two OSes and a choice of which drive to boot from.

Post what you want to accomplish in the Linux help section.

Edited by TheTerrorist_75
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Ok, one extra question.

Why are the jumpers used? Is it to identify which is master and which is slave?

I was reading about master and slave drives, and it seems like, there is not much of a difference. The master is the drive that boots first.

So do I need jumpers to differientce the difference between master and slave? Can I just set in the bios, the drive I want to boot first?

You either need to jumpaer the drives as Master/Slave or Cable Select. With WD drives it will be Master - Dual drives and Slave or CS.

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