Have 3 hard drives, want to put Linux on 3rd...

[poopystinkbottom]

I'll try and keep this simple:

1. I have 3 hard disks in my machine.
2. Windows 2000 is on a 40 gig
3. Windows Me is on a 20 gig
4. The 3rd disk is an empty 6 gig
5. I'm currently using the default Win200/NT 'NT Loader' for a boot loader
6. I want to run Linux on the 6 gig drive

Question is:

What would be the best way to do this, and without having to use some kind of 3rd party boot loader program?

Thanks for any help!

[Nekopa]

Install Linux, don't use the bootloader that comes with Linux, and make a boot disk. It will be slower to boot up this way, but you won't need any kind of bootloader installed.

This is how I am booting into Linux. All I need to do now is figure out how to make a boot-cd so I can boot up faster :D

Lee

[danrees]

Well, you can either use LILO, grub (linux software) or NT Loader as your boot selector.

It's quite easy to do, and most distributions these days will help you set up LILO when you install. With three disks, you'll probably have three disks in Linux:

/dev/hda
/dev/hdb
/dev/hdc

You can set up LILO to boot from the MBR, and then load WinMe or Win2000 from /dev/hda and /dev/hdb, or the Linux kernel from /dev/hdc.

See: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/osbooting/tripleb.html http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Linux+Windows-HOWTO/index.html

...and also help choosing a distribution: http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf/intel/distros/distronhf.html

[SPB]

Actually you can set it up so that Windows2000 controlls the booting. Go her: http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=58
to find out how. Its simple realy :D

[Denise]

SPB thanks for the link.