Sorry I am just getting back to you. Work is always a detriment for me when trying to do anything I consider to be enjoyable (???). I will be looking closely at your discussions with Don, and I have saved the tutorial Don sent me and as soon as I get the time to get started on this project, I will submit any questions. However, I will save discussions between you and Don as a reference point. ___________________________reply separator____________________________ From: Gman <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx> Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Partitioning Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 02:07:29 -0400 Don has been working at this for quite a while now, so his 'needs' are further advanced that anything you should be shooting for. Knowing what I know about both of your situations gives me the ability to know just how much different your needs are, but I completely understand that may not be enough make you feel a whole lot better. lol As I see your situation, you only want/need to set up a dual boot that keeps as much of your personal data away from the OS drives. You have many options ahead of you as you plan your approach, but the actual steps you take to create this masterpiece are not difficult. I promise you that. Don is a calculating, but slightly reckless, maverick (one of the many things I really like about him, I assure you). However, you are currently new to this approach and will want to approach things a lot more cautiously (you can earn your maverick stripes later, if you're so inclined lol). I already have a relatively strong mental image of how your system will be set up, but the final design (simple, complicated or anything in between) needs to be created/owned by you. The trick then is to figure out exactly what YOU want to do with these options as opposed to whatever you see someone else do with them. Don said that he sent you at least one of my earlier tutorials on all of this stuff. Read through it several times (leave a day or more in between to clear out the fog it causes) and take notes each time you do. Toss out the things for which you believe you have no use. Ask about the things that remain that aren't perfectly clear. I don't care if you ask me to expand on every sentence I wrote. From my perspective, the most important thing for you to learn is the WHY part of each idea included in the tutorial. Once you understand the 'WHY' for doing something, you'll be in a position to choose whether to include it in your plan. Some of the answers may be revealed to you by just watching my discussions with Don (or anyone else who asks), but that won't give you everything you need to make intelligent, informed decisions about how to best approach your own system. Too little modification may severely limit what you're able to do with your eventual setup. Too much may turn out to be too confusing to use intuitively. My focus is solely to help you design a setup that gives you ultimate freedom for usability along with as much expandability as possible for future growth. Peace, Gman http://www.thevenusproject.com/index.php "The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask" --------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary. To subscribe, unsubscribe or modify your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk OR To subscribe to the mailing list, send an email to pctechtalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject. To unsubscribe send email to pctechtalk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" in the Subject. To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/ To contact only the PCTT Mod Squad, write to: pctechtalk-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To join our separate PCTableTalk off-topic group, send a blank email to: pctabletalk+subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------------------------------------------------------------