I want to install Ubuntu side by side on my Windows XP.But instead of placing it on HDD C: drive, i want to place it on a slave HDD (which would be drive F:).I already tested on a virtual machine in placing on a second HDD but it doesn't appear to work.
How should i proceed?
Edit:
As we discovered my answer is not that relevant if you use Wubi as it will do all the complicated work for you. But if somebody reading this plans to do it with grub instead then keep reading.
The problem with such setup is that it makes bootloader setup bit more difficult.
Namely when you want to boot to XP then Windows requires to be on the first boot device. The problem is that grub (Linux bootloader that usually would provide the menu at boot where you can chose which OS you want to start) is installed on the second HD where Ubuntu is and if you boot to grub (that is, use the HD where Ubuntu is as the first boot drive) and chose Windows then it won't start.
Remember that /dev/sda, /dev/sdb... are just names that the drives have in Linux. Windows knows nothing about it and neither does bios. Windows uses names such as C:, D: ..but neither does know Linux or bios about them. What matters here is boot order set in bios. For changing the boot order in bios there are lot of guides available and it is dependent on your hardware model.
What you need to do is to set up XP bootloader to let you chose between Ubuntu and Windows.
There is a good guide for it here. I have not tested it myself but you should get general idea and what keywords to search for. In your case Ubuntu would be installed on a separate HD and in theory you should not be worried about overwriting Windows MBR. Of course it doesn't hurt to unplug Windows HD before you install Ubuntu just to make sure nothing funny happens during the installation.
