Are there any versions of Linux that DON’T screw with your MBR?? I just ran into a major issue with Ubuntu. And Geez never again. I had 2 partitions on my HD and tried installing Ubuntu on another one and spent the whole night praying I didn’t lose the stuff on my other PCs do ALL versions of Linux screw with tat or not?? I was VERY unimpressed with the one I loaded. And then trying to recover my other drives took a couple of hours because of the damn MBR. So is it possible to SAFELY install Linux of any version without messing up what’s already on my PC?? I simply want to try Linux out without losing all my data. Any help here??

You should start with either virtual machines or live cd's. Some if not most VM's are free and are newbie safe. Live CD/DVD's are really easy. Boot to the disk and run the OS.

Dual boots are well known to bork newbie's machines.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

I have two HD's. Windows XP Pro is on the first one and Ubuntu 7.10 is on the second. Before installing Ubuntu, I used Disk Management in Windows to partition the second HD with /, /home and swap partitions. I proceeded to install Ubuntu and manually configured the partitions so as not to confuse them with the first HD. All went smooth. When I reboot the computer after I was done I get my choice of which OS to use, Ubuntu (default) or Windows. You have to know ahead of time the capacity of your partitions to know which one you are working with. When the screen came up for my Windows partition or HD, I knew right away it was the first HD, label HDa1. My second is Hdb5. Yes you can safely install Linux as long as you keep track of the partitions and their capacities or size.

ok thanks guys. I DID originally use the Live CD... and I wanted to make it more permanent. but I had never used Linux before. so I didn’t know about the whole swap thing. what a freaking mess. I wont do that again. thanks for the second answer about the swap management stuff. I will sure know better next time. this won't happen again. I spent an entire evening trying to recover my other OS and wont go through that again. thanks again for the input : )

I second Jefro's comment. If you are new to
Linux and the concept of installing an OS
other than Windows (managing hard drive
partitions and extended partition volumes
etc.), the safest way to make Linux more
permanent on your system is to install a VM
(Virtual Machine) such as VMWare or
VirtualBox (free for personal use), then
install the Linux distribution of your
choice to the VM.

If you are unfamiliar with what a Virtual
Machine is, it is essentially a virtual
computer built in software to run on your
real computer (while Windows is running). To
use a virtual machine program, you set up a
virtual hard drive file (using the VM
software), then install the OS of your
choice on the virtual hard drive from within
the running VM program. Simply download the
DVD installation disk image for the Linux
distribution of your choice then (in Virtual
Box) you can select the DVD image file for
Virtual Box to use as if it were a real DVD
drive. Boot the VM (from the DVD image). The
installer on the DVD image you booted will
take care of the rest for you safely since
it is installing to an empty virtual hard
drive. As far as the installation program
knows, it is installing the OS on a real
computer (it 'sees' the virtual hard drive
file you created as a real hard drive, and
it does not even 'know' your real hard drive
exists).

HTH,

Ernie Registered Linux User 247790

thanks ernie i appreciate it. yes the only OS i use are the windows ones and i wanted to try Linux but phew i had all these isues with Grub errors and stuff. i made sure i backed up all my stuff but i wil try the VM as you suggested and see how that works. .. thanks again.