[vox-tech] Adding a 2nd HDD

[Thomas Johnston]

My wife has a Dell Studio 1535 that is currently running only Windows
Vista. I just picked up a new and larger HDD for it and was going to
make a dual boot window-kubuntu machine to try and ease her into the
world of linux. However, It has a an OPTIARC AD-7640S 12.7mm SATA Slot
load 8X DVDRW that just started making more grinding noises than a
first-time driver with a manual transmission. Driver updates, firm
updates and even new system bios only made the problem worse. I was
wondering if anyone has any experience with replacing the original
optical drive in a laptop with a second HDD?

I found a caddy online that should make the physical swap possible (if
anyone can recommend an alternative, I am all ears):
http://    newmodeus.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=281
(notice how they mention that "This is a really sharp-looking
well-engineered product.")

My question is, after the installation is complete, would this likely
involve a complicated setup/configuration in order to "get it to
work"? I suppose there are different ways in which the second drive
could be utilized, and thus result in different levels of
configuration complexity. My first thought would be to put the old HDD
in the optical drive slot and leave the window installation as is and
put Kubuntu on the new HDD, but would it be possible to boot to either
drive?  Or, if that setup would be complicated what about having a
dual boot on the new HDD and using the old HDD as extra storage space?
Would that also be complicated to do?

Any advice or pointers to information/tutorials, etc would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Thomas