Not sure if this is "common" tip/trick, its my first attempt, but thought it was worth it, you judge...

Had Knoppix v3.3 HD installed to /dev/hda1, with Linux Swap on /dev/hda3, /de/hda2 was a dummy DOS partition (non-bootable)

I wanted to get a vfat, Windows install for Wine to work with, and was concerned about having Windows muck-up my Knoppix, in essense, I wanted Windows only for the "shell" and not the bootable OS.

I added a (small) 2.0 gig hard drive as my Secondary Master on my IDE chain, Knoppix/Debian hard drive is Primary Master. So that Windows (my version was Win9 didn't even touch my Knoppix, I removed the power plug on the Knoppix (/dev/hda - Primary Master) hard drive, and selected in my BIOS Boot Order, Second Hard Drive as first boot device.

Booted up system with the Win98 Setup CD - and went through the complete Install from the Windows CD. After being sure that Windows was happy, and configured, I shutdown, turned off power, and replaced the power connector on the Knoppix hard drive device.

Keeping my BIOS Boot Order set to the Second Hard Drive, I booted into Windows98, and made sure it was still happy. Shutdown Windows, went into the BIOS and repointed my Boot Order back to the First Hard Drive as first choice, and rebooted into Knoppix. In Knoppix I made the necessary additions to fstab to mount the vfat device, holding bare-minimum Win98, and had what I needed.

This trick works really nice, if you have two hard drive devices, want to dedicate one of them to Knoppix, and the other to Windows - not sure if this trick works on Windows versions above '98 or not though.

Nice thing about this is, if I "have" to, I just change my BIOS Boot Order, and I can boot into Windows, without having to use any BootLoader, or having a MBR issue, and it never did anything to my Knoppix.

Cuddles
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