Now that I finally solved the problem of not being able to boot even XP (it ended up being a corrupt boot sector which 'fixboot' not 'fixmbr' took care of - thanks to all for the helpful suggestions even if they were ultimately fruitless), I now want to try installing Ubuntu 5.10 again, but I'd like some advice before I do so that I might avoid the nightmare that I experienced on my first try. My current drive layout is as follows: IDE1 slave (hdb) - 160GB #1 primary 120 GB ntfs hdb1 (40 GB unused, unformatted space) SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 160GB #1 primary 75.5 GB ntfs sda1 (where XP is installed - marked as bootable) #5 logical 10.0 GB ntfs sda5 (I could get rid of this partition) (75 GB unused, unformatted space) 1. Should I install Ubuntu on the same physical drive as XP? This is the only HD shown in the list of bootable devices in my BIOS. I think the problem I experienced this week in creating a dualboot system was complicated (not necessarily caused) by the fact that I had tried to install Ubuntu on the other physical drive and Grub didn't seem to cope nicely. 2. I was thinking that I could use the 40GB on IDE1 as an extra data drive for Ubuntu or XP later on. I'd like to see how I do with Ubuntu first. What if anything, would I have to do to my Ubuntu install to recognize the new IDE1 partition if I decide to format and use it for linux later? 3. Is this the smartest way to do things? I'm open to better advice. I need XP and I need the 120GB ntfs partition for video editing storage, so going all-linux isn't possible for me right now (that along with AutoCAD requirements). Thanks - RQ