so i'm a little computer stupid.....

[girlunsung]

I have a copy of Mandrake that I'm almost ready to install. If I put in on a different hard drive than Windows is on, will that better protect me from evil evil crashes that would wipe out my system?

[rstebb]

If you have a separate harddrive available for Linux only I would use that. The only problem with using the same hardrive as windows is you may need to do some resizing of your windows partition. While most repartitioning software works well, it can sometimes go south.

Mandrake has repartitioning built into the install routine. It works very well. Still a VERY good idea to back up those data files.

Good luck.

[MBMarduk]

I'll probably get lambasted for this, but whatever...
Look around the forum, PLEASE, look in 'Technical support' in 'hardware' in 'software' and in here!

Plenty of people with (1) copy of Mandrake and (1) screwed up HDD after installing.

Remember ANY distro can screw this up for you, so please PLEASE do yourself a favor and make sure you know what you're doing. :)

FUD, -Fact, Understanding, Duhhh...???
-Mike

[MBMarduk]

Sorry, let me add this:
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/articles/index.html

You'll probably find lots of good help in here (if you haven't already)

-Mike

[navy-linux]

I have installed Mandrake numerous ways in the past year. Never had a problem following the instructions. Some of the instructions can be confusing though. My personal opinion is to install Linux on a seperate hard drive. I now have removable hard drive bays and swap out the drive for what ever system I want to run that day. I still need windows for the wife and for when I need to use ms access for work files.
The dual boot is pretty simple. Like some of the others have said, make sure you back up your important windows data that you can not afford to loose. that way if anything does go south with the install and you mess up windows, you have the important data saved.
good luck, and just jump right on in.

:p

[*Lo*Tek*]

If you are still at a stage where you are still experimenting on how to install Linux, then I recommend that you do it with a separate hard drive, so as not to damage other existing partitions on your hard disk in case something you did turned out to be wrong...