Partitioning

[Brian]

Currently I have W2000 and 2 hard drives. If I want to install XP as a dual option should I partition the primary hard drive or the slave or doesn\'t it matter?

[Tracky110XP]

you don\'t have to re-partition anything with 2 hard drives. just install windows XP on the hard drive that does NOT have windows 2000 installed.

but if you really want to, i would do the primary drive.

[Twinkie]

System partitions (the one you install an OS on) should always be primary partitions.  Unless you upgraded your disk from basic to dynamic.  You can have up to 4 partitions on a basic disk if I remember.  Either primary or logical.  The cool thing about 2000 and XP is that you do not have to install on the first partition on the first disk like dos (ME-9X).  So to answer your question.... anywhere.  It is good practice though to put the second OS on a seperate partition or even drive if possiable.  Makes it easier to sort through later.

[Tracky110XP]

a little correction if you don\'t mind.

with w2k and XP it dons\'t matter where you OS, seperate hard drive, partition (logical or primary).

upgrading your hard drive to dynamic disk should never be done, unless the drive is not the system drive. dynamic will allow for you to do software based raid on a system. i sugest to never do this, use hardware based raid where ever possible, and never on a system drive.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;q175761 (Dynamic vs. Basic Storage in Windows 2000)

now with the partitions you can have up to 4 primary with 0 logical. and 3 primary with 1 extended with multiple logical drives as you need. all of this on one hard drive.

i hope i didn\'t come off to harsh. its just that i have seen many people loss a lot of data due to dynamic disk failing.