Question about setting up a dual boot

[357mag]

I now have two hard drives in my machine. The master is a 7200 RPM drive and the slave is a 5400 RPM drive. Now what I will probably do is use KillDisk to completely erase the contents of both drives, so both drives will be clean before I install Windows and Linux. One question I have is which OS should I install first? What I'd like to do is install either Xandros or Fedora to the master drive, but someone on a site said he wasn't sure Windows will install to any drive other than the master. And then of course I would install Windows to the slave drive. Another question is this business of the boot loader. Can I just follow the defaults in the Linux installation program, which usually always defaults to installing the boot loader in the MBR? If everything works when I get done and boot my machine I should see a screen that shows both operating systems and gives me the choice of booting into either.

[catacon]

Install windows first, Linux does a better job of not interfering with other OS's files.

[ffreeloader]

Windows should install to any drive. You will be given a choice during XP's install as to where you want to install it. As the other poster here said, install Windows first. It doesn't play nicely with other OS's and having to repair a boot loader would be pretty frustrating for someone just doing their first Linux install because Windows will over write the Linux boot loader.

If you install a distro that uses grub as boot loader you will have a graphical interface that will allow you to choose the OS you want to boot into. Just be aware that the default is only 5 seconds so you don't have much time to just look when it first comes up. You can, however, defeat that by simply using the down arrow when the screen first opens. That will allow you to look at the screen at your leisure. All you have to do to boot then is use the up or down arrow to make your choice and hit enter.