is it best to have linux on a separate hard drive from windows entirely?

[TonyRic]

magomago, just remember this: Your mileage may vary. Personally I wouldn't do it as a permanent solution, but have done it as a stop gap measure until all of the data can be transferred to another filesystem.

 

[P0ldy]

Just buy a separate hdd.

 

[shud]

I appreciate the help but everyone completely missed what I was trying to say. My storage drives would just be mounted in the Linux box, they would have no Linux files at all on them. All that would be handled by the 20gb OS drive.

 

[P0ldy]

So your 20GB is or is not full? If not, repartition the free space (leave some for NTFS) and format it with ext3. You can mount the others, but your write capability, should you EVER need it, will be spotty at best for the 250/160. I don't see what your question is.