Few HD questions...

[Jayce]

1. You can't use RAID with IDE can you?

2. Can I get two identicle hard drives and set one with XP and the other with Linux? Can I set them up so when the PC boots up I am prompted to choose which HD to boot off of? Would they both be set up as master if I did this?

3. If I were to get a RAID setup, do both hard drives need to be the exact same space? Or can I use a 200 + 120 gig and the 120 will just fill up and stop mirroring the 200 when it's full?

 

[shenlingstyle]

1. I believe you can yes.

2. Not sure, I never used Linux except for a LIVE version.

3. For mirroring, I believe you need to have two identical size drives yes. For stripping, I think a difference in size will cause a loss in performance.

 

[TheOtis]

Yes you can RAID on IDE as far as I know

Again, as far as I know yes. But you have to go into BIOS and select what hard disk to boot from. You can do that under disk boot priority.

And I also believe for RAID1 (mirroring), you do need two identical drivs like RAID0(stripping) or youd get a loss in performance.

 

[cook]

1. Yes as long as your mainboard supports RAID or if you buy a RAID IDE controller card.
2. Yes. If you have XP on one disk and install a Linux distro on the other. Here is a good walkthrough of how to do it:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/dual_boot_fedora_xp.php
3.Yes you would need two of the same size...ideally the same brand .

 

[GuitarFreak1857]

why not just get a big hdd and add two partitions on it and install each OS on each partition?

 

[Static_11]

lol, thats what i was thinking while reading over all this.. just get one hdd and make partitions and install the OS's on them

 

[Jayce]

why not just get a big hdd and add two partitions on it and install each OS on each partition?

I'm not planning on doing ANY of the questions I just asked. I just wasn't sure if it was actually possible to do with two separate hard drives.

 

[smartech]

For OS question:

It is possible with two hard drives as with one. It just a bit more simple if your have two HDs cause you can do it without messing with partitions.

I myself have XP and Linux installed on one single 80Gb HD (total 10 partitions - 6 for XP, 4 for linux. But you could use much less, I did it just for comfort and better files ordering).