i just picked up an 8 gb wd hdd from one of the machines they were tossing out at work and figured it would be good to install linux on. i dont want to mess around with grub or lilo as i'm little on free time these days and dont want to have to use norton ghost to recover my system unless i have to. i've read that you can create a boot disk that when put into your disk drive will boot you into linux, otherwise u go into windows. is this possible?

in retrospect: can i install ubuntu onto a secondary hdd and boot to it via a floppy/cd-rom?

That is a pretty good-sized drive for a Linux install.

Go ahead and plug it in and install to it. The location that Linux will call it will be as follows:
Primary Master = /dev/hda
Primary Slave = /dev/hdb
Secondary Master = /dev/hdc
Secondary Slave = /dev/hdd
(numbers after the above device names will indicate partition numbers on the drive)

When you are prompted to install GRUB or LILO, use the instructions here to use your Windows NT Boot Loader to dual boot. It will be your best option, and will not touch your MBR.
http://www.geocities.com/epark/linux/grub-w2k-HOWTO.html

i checked out your site previously to posting and found the whole resizing xp tedious. if i'm installing it onto my secondary drive do i have to worry about the infamous 1024 limit? i'm using an is7 which is pretty recent so i assume i shouldnt have this problem.

here's what i have for hdd's right now:

1 36gb WD Raptor as my primary boot drive (SATA)
2 80gb maxtors as storage drives (IDE)
1 8gb wd caviar (IDE)

i'm dling the ubuntu live dvd so it wont finish until another hour, figured i'd at least fool around in the environment before actually installing it. anywho, how do i go about partitioning the 8gb drive? will the linux installation automatically do this? is the boot partition created during the linux installation or is it already there when i installed windows. sorry for the questions, i'm a total noob with linux.

Does someone want to point this chap to the Ubuntu guide? Apparently it is excellent - although I am a tad pushed for time to find it for you right now.

I'm almost certain that this should pretty much answer all of your questions.

GJ

www.ubuntuguide.org
have fun

ty