two local disks

Dear people,

Take pity on me, I am installing Linux for the first time.

I have two local disks, one completely free with 40 GB of free space, more than enough for Linux.

However, when I try to install Linux it won't let me do anything because it says a root partition has not been assigned. What is going on?

What can I do to install Linux on the second local disk while keeping Windows XP functional?


Thanks

You probably need to partition the second harddrive.
This can be done either from a LiveCD, or a linux installation cd.

And yes, you can keep your Windows intact.
What you do is you install linux on your second harddrive,
and then use a bootloader (GRUB or Lilo) which will allow you
to choose which operating system to start from.