Swapping Suse Linux and Windows 7 o/s drives - any worries about the data drive?

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hello,

I am unable to find an answer in older threads, though sorry if I missed the answer, if it exists. My old Suse computer died and I built a new system. I’ve placed the operating systems in caddies so that I can swap Linux and Windows 7 drives. However, before I could test the Linux system (I will be using 11.3) I added a data drive formatted for Windows and used Windows 7 and Audacity to record several Radio 3 Proms performances I’d like to keep.

Question (1): Will I have any problem given the existance of the data drive by swapping back and forth the Suse and Windows 7 o/s drives?

Question (2): Can I access and record data to the data drive (formatted for Windows) using Suse 11.3?

Question (3): If (2) is yes, will Windows react in any way to the data drive if it has been accessed and written to by Suse Linux?

Sorry if these are silly questions (or more complex than I envisioned), but I’d rather be safe than sorry.

Many thanks for the help.

Kind regards,

Mark

#2

No problem…:slight_smile:

#3

Certainly, regarding your first question there will be no problem. For your second question, opensuse supports writing to FAT32 or NTFS formatted drives, though by default opensuse will only allow the root user to have write access for NTFS. To enable user write permissions on NTFS drives, add dmask=002 in /etc/fstab for the NTFS drive entry.

I do wonder however why you actually physically swap out the drives to change between the two operating systems: I also deal boot, and with separate drives you can safely install the boot loader on the opensuse drive to give the option of boot into Windows, without touching the Windows drive at all.

#4

I also have the same setup as you describe, don’t have any problems at all.
Ron

#5

Thanks all for the responses. The reason I am taking such a cumbersome route is that I want to eventually swap over to using Suse Linux as my only o/s. The test will be to see if Audacity under Suse Linux operates reliably. Currently I rely on the Windows verson of Audacity and all the recording I’ve done on the data disk originates from Audacity for Windows.

Thanks again for the help.

Mark

#6

The test will be to see if Audacity under Suse Linux operates reliably.

Audacity works well under linux, the things I think you should have a look at are,How well is the driver for your sound card supported? Should I use the KDE or Gnome back end? as an example.

for this I suggest posting here Multimedia

And by the way, Ilike this method,

I’ve placed the operating systems in caddies so that I can swap Linux and Windows 7 drives.

#7

thanks, DVHenry, for the site and for the advice. I hope to install my new version of Suse on the weekend and to begin testing Audacity then. The site reference you provided may prove necessary. :wink:

Mark