Adding a second HD

hey guys, im trying to learn linux well enough so that i can make some use of it. Im thinking of putting it permanantly on my comp with my windows and doing a dual boot. But my windows HD is like… 30 something gigs and im not looking to make it less. I have a 40 gig HD that i salvaged from a discarded 98. Its western digital and got 40 gigs so i figured it might come in handy. My question is… if i just plug it in while my regular hd is plugged in will it disrupt or break anything? i cant afford to be buying another copy of windows ATM so… any input appreciated.

Why would you have to buy another copy? Didnt you get a recovery disk with your pc?

it wasnt originally my PC. and the original owner was dumb. I dont have a manual or any of the disks it came with

well

pirate it

easy and cheap:D

windows? it asks me to reverify it then some lady at a desk in some country i've never heard of tells me my copy is no good even when i buy a legitimate copy idk how pirating would work. Lets stay on topic. if i put in a HD will it fuck with anything?

check the jumper setting of de second harddrive. (these are the little caps,to connect to pins that make a connection,at the back of the device.)there should also be an example drawing on the drive…this will explain what is the master setting,the slave,or the cable select jumper setting. the secondary should be set to slave,or,if the master disk is set to MASTER not cable select,then you can set the jumpers to cable select on the second device.i advice you to just go with slave. if there is no drawing google for it,and just try some different settings, you CAN'T break anything with jumper settings on a HARDDISK. i know it sounds like a lot.it isn't. if you're not sure you can pm me. good luck…

Thank you Darksun!

im assuming your issue is fixed, but if you were pirating a windows OS i'd suggest going with windows 2000. Its smaller then XP and in my opinion much more reliable (im sure some people will back me up with that :-P) and also the verification for it is much more simple. You can use the same key as many times as youre heart desires.

Good luck ;)

it shouldnt mess up anything on your current hdd, just make sure that you have them in the right order you want, if i remember correctly it should go mobo>slave (linux?)>master(windows?) i just got back from vacation and the time difference is really fucking with my head but whatever hope this helps