Install question - options?

No you can put XP on any partition you want.
It will put the boot loader on the first partition of the first drive.
The thing is you must install Msoft products in order of creation eg 98 ME 2000 Xp due to older ones wont recognize newer ones.

I dont know what effect it will have with Linux boot though.

One other thing to consider is to install XP with FAT32 so 2000 can recognize the XP files. Xp defaults to NTFS but gives you a option during install.

You don't think Windows 2000 can read NTFS? NTFS has been around since Windows NT 4.0.

Grumpy

Oops your right Grumpy
Ihad win 98 on also when I did it so I needed fat 32
Sorry about that

Yeah, I wasn't worried about 2000/XP reading each other! I was mostly wondering about where XP could go. So, I could install on either drive?

I believe if I install it on the 2nd HDD that I have to set which drive to choose in the BIOS, don't I? I mean, both drives would have to be set to bootable.

I think it would be easiest to somehow free up some space in the 1st drive and install XP there, right? XP should have about 8-10GB with 10 being a decent amount and 8 probably being as low as one should go. Windows is always installing files onto the OS drive (like C). I try to install whatever programs I can on another partition/directory so 'C' (for e.g.) doesn't get too full or bloated.

It sounds like if I can find some disk space on the 1st drive, my best option is to install it there (10 GB), right?

BTW, if you have two Windows operating systems on your drive and you are in one of them, how does the other Windows OS deal with the other? What are the partitions arragements like? I am familiar with ONE Windows OS and multiple Linux distros and how each 'reads' the other. But, I read someplace that there might be conflicts with one Windows OS 'looking' at the other one. Since many directories still have the same or similar names. If someone could elaborate on this situation/topic, that would be most helpful. I don't have to worry about it with my current configuration/partitions since I only have one Windows OS on the one drive so far. But, if I have Windows XP and 2000 on the same drive but in different partitions, what do I need to do/know?

Thanks.

Currently my disk is a shambles that I need to fix some day but I currently have one disk with 3 partitions.
I used to have 98 on c: 2000 on d: and xp on E:
Currently only xp on e: which is pretty full.

You are correct in being able to put progs on any drive letter you want and the op system on another and the registry will keep track. Its probably more efficient to use a seperate drive for this as seek times should be a little quicker.
Where you say that windows always tries to install to c: isnt entirely correct. It will try to install into the drive|partition that contains the currently running version of windows.
Just tell the program where you want it to reside during its install.

As far as the op systems they wont bother with each other as you can only run one at a time.
The thing is that if you want a prog available on both op systems you will have to install it on both op systems.

Im not completly positive if you need to go into the bios to select the boot order with 2 drives. Someone will answer that in more detail but I am pretty sure that xp will install the boot loader on the first partition of the first drive when it detects more op systems.
Your experience with Linux will help you with questions on its needs.