Wiping my slave HD as a prerequisite to installing Linux.

[Athorne]

I plan to install Ubuntu Linux onto a seperate slave hard drive that I removed from an old Sony Viao (40GB). I have lurked around the forums and I think I have the process down: Burn Ubuntu onto a disk > Change the boot order to boot from CD first > Install from the disk choosing to install it onto my slave HD > Restart and remove disk > then have fun with my dual booting WinXP and Ubuntu.

First however, I need to completely wipe this slave HD clean (as I do not want any windows stuff on the slave as it is to be linux only); but trying to format in WINXP gives me two options FAT32 and NTFS, and I don't think I want either of those. The other problem is that the slave HD is split so it looks like 2 HDs in My Computer, and I need to get it back to one HD and then wipe it clean.

I'm leaving my master HD with WinXP alone, as I have too many programs and things that would be unusable if I fully converted. I think this is known as Dual Booting, but I'm not sure.

 

[macdude425]

Let Ubuntu format it for you. During the install, select the slave drive to install to, and format it as ext3 or ReiserFS.

 

[Athorne]

Let Ubuntu format it for you. During the install, select the slave drive to install to, and format it as ext3 or ReiserFS.

Okay, I'm attempting the install now. The Install CD finished DLing and I've burnt it to a cd. One question though. What about the two drives appearing in My Computer; Will it write over this? (I'm assuming the HD has been partitioned into two drives)

 

[macdude425]

It should let you delete the partitions, and then format the enitre drive.

 

[Athorne]

Okay, thanks for your help. Is there any advantage between the two types of formats you listed?

 

[macdude425]

ext3 and ReiserFS are both journaled filesystems, both very stable. The only advantage to ext3 over ReiserFS is that it's easier to access in other operating systems via ext2 drive programs (ext2 is ext3's older, not as nice big brother).

 

[Athorne]

I'm at the Partition disks section of the installer, and I am a bit confused. It gives me 6 choices and I know that I need to decide between two of them:

1. Erase entire disk: IDE1 slave (hdb) - 40.0 GB ST340823A

or

2. Erase entire disk and use LVM: IDE1 slave (hdb) - 40.0 GB ST340823A

I'm not sure what LVM is and I'm rather wary about just selecting one and praying it works. There is also the option to "Manually edit partition table" but I think I will get in over my head with that.

 

[macdude425]

I don't quite remember what LVM is, but I never use it. Try just erasing the entire disk.

 

[Athorne]

Awesome, Ubuntu seems to be up and running fine. All I need now is an internet connection; so I need to find out how to get Linux to recognize/use my D-link DWL-120 Wireless USB Adapter. I'll just google it, however if anyone has a site where you can get linux drivers it would be much apreciated as I can forsee needing them in the future.

Thanks for holding my hand through this process macdude.

 

[macdude425]

Anytime. For the WLAN card, you could look into these drivers.
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net
http://atmelwlandriver.sourceforge.net