Dual boot and 2nd HDD

[Palpatine]

I have winxp installed in a WD 200BB 20GB and I want to dual boot my pc with winxp and linux, so i am thinking of buying a second 30GB HDD. I will install the second HDD as primary slave. I dont want to have all 30GB for linux so i am thinking of partitioning like 20/10 and install linux in the 10GB partition. If i install linux in E (assuming that C is the first HDD and D is the first 20GB partition of second drive) will i be able to dual boot or do i need to some other configuration? I dont want to format c and make a clean install if there is an easier way.

 

[hammerhead]

From my experience that won't be a problem at all. You can install Linux onto any valid partition.

 

[sdausmus]

I am in a similar situation, getting ready to install an 8.4GB drive I got for a song as a second HDD along with my 40GB drive. Now, I have 8GB partitioned on the first drive already, because I was going to install Linux on that partition, but was advised against it because of the Lilo boot loader thing being (allegedly) difficult to get off your MBR if you decide to uninstall Linux, so I'm using that for system backup. So should I boot to the 8GB as my master drive, and then default the Lilo to default boot the system into Windows off of the 40GB, which I will have set as slave? Or is there a better configuration I could be using?