New to linux\knoppix makin dual boot xp\knoppix on 2 hdrives

[Harry Kuhman]

Do you think I could find one of those in Comp USA, Circut City or best buy? I personally would not try to fabricate one of them myself, because I might make a mistake and mess something up.

I personally would trust something that I built far more than a device like this that I bought, and it would still have to be installed, which presents just as much chance of error. While I have seen such switches sold in a number of styles and targeted at different types of users, I would suggest something that provides a similar function, will give you ever greater utility, and has become very inexpensive (if you shop for it at the right sources). This is a simple hard drive tray and bay that mounts in a 5 1/2 inch slot. They make these for either IDE or SATA drives (as well as SCSI). They frequently include fans to help keep the drive cool. You can usually buy extra trays (or just buy a complete extra kit) and have multiple trays to hold your different drives. You just slide in whatever drive that you want to run with at the moment and it's elctrically connected, the other drives sit safely in your desk drawer where nothing you do on the computer can impact them. You very likely might find these drive bays at CompUSA, but I would expect them to be overpriced there. I know that you can get them inexpensively at TigerDirect and often even more inexpensively at Geeks.com. Just be sure to buy enough extra trays that mate properly with the drive bay at the same time to satisfy yourself, the styles on these things change frequently and you can't usually get more matching trays later. And be sure to pay attention and get the right type tray for your style of drive.

[RandomGoon]

What you could do and would solve your hard drive switching needs is get a removable hard drive bay with 2 trays. This will allow you to switch out your hard drives (with the system powered down of course) when you need to.

As for creating the backup disks of your OS there should be a tool provided by Compaq that will, eventually, nag you to do just that. I belive it should be under "All Programs" > "PC Help & Tools" > and should be intuitively obvious from there. You might have to look elsewhere but I think that should be the location.

'Goon

[linux student]

I think I found a way to get a copy of win xp pro OEM for around $100 usd so I think that will solve most of my problems. So after I get that and do a clean install on the new hd I move onto my next problem. Finding a linux distro that will handle Aol. So I can get online without the need of windows.