am currently searching for a new laptop

[BrotherAdam]

Since most ship with windows, I am looking for a two hard drive laptop. But, I am being confused by labels on stuff as there seems to be some new format hard drive that fits in a hot swap space on some, but others simply talk of flash and normal drives, etc... I want to know, if this new drive spec is for mini hard drives or such, does that mean I could load different linux versions on the swappable drives and keep my files on the hard drive? Or is there still two hard drive 15 and 17 inch laptops being made? I bought a 15 HP recently and the new UEFI setup on it would not allow any version of Linux to be installed, and it used a different powercord connector, which I can find no converter from my travel adaptor to the laptop for... so it is now becoming a graduation present for my youngest daughter... since she needs windows for college...
But, I need advice as the different websites for HP, Asus, etc... especially here in the UK, do not offer the advice I need to know what will work for me, and I am seemingly becoming stupid in my old age...
Thanks guys, for any advice you can give me.

[Lebarhon]

hello,

Your post sounds like many things are confused.
You can have several linux installations alongside Windows whatever the number of hard disks your PC owns. Files can be exchanged between the different operating systems.
UEFI doesn't prevent to install Mageia, but it requires extra skills. UEFI can also emulate the "old" Legacy BIOS, but that needs to re-install Windows and you can't have a HDD over 2,2 TB.
For your daughter, you have the choice between dual boot Mageia/Windows or installing Windows in a Virtual machine powered by Mageia. Both solutions are possible on any PC, but the second solution need more resources to be fast (depending on what you are doing with Windows). As far as I know, virtual machines are only available in 32 bits architecture.
Did you see this page :
https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installation ... th_Windows

[doktor5000]

Since most ship with windows, I am looking for a two hard drive laptop. But, I am being confused by labels on stuff as there seems to be some new format hard drive that fits in a hot swap space on some, but others simply talk of flash and normal drives, etc... I want to know, if this new drive spec is for mini hard drives or such, does that mean I could load different linux versions on the swappable drives and keep my files on the hard drive? Or is there still two hard drive 15 and 17 inch laptops being made?

What new format do you mean, maybe mSATA?
Most newer laptops that come with two drives (usually SSD+HDD) come with an mSATA drive as it just saves quite a lot of space.
But there are also probably still laptops with two normal 2.5" harddisks, be it SSD or HDD. But how does the form factor matter?
As Lebarhon mention, your post seems pretty confused - can you please explain what you're referring to exactly?

[BrotherAdam]

thanks both of you. The new laptop from HP seems to block every attempt to load linux on it, so I am giving it to my daughter who is going to be too far from me for me to help... as she will have access to more people who know and use windows if she has problems. I am in a whole different side of the ocean normally from her...

And yes, I did read various pages on UEFI, and three magazine articles, and had a live disk, burned a second disk in case the first was defective, when the first attempts to lad did not work... even called HP service for help and got noplace...
My older HP laptops both prefer grub 2 rather than grub, and also were 64 bit.
And yes, I am confused with the new ways of doing stuff, and so may sound confused. M-sata... from what I see it seems like the old link cards... so is it capable of swapping out various versions by swapping it, as it seems to plug in like a floppy disk, or like the old removable hard drive...
or the old zip drives if you remember them...

But, if that saves on form factor and means I can use it in a 15 inch laptop, fine, just why don't the web sites tell me more info... as I have a laptop here that has one hard drive that has a built in flash drive as part of it... so I don't know when they say they have both flash and normal hard drive space...

Anyway, if you can help shed more light, it will help me and maybe even help others as well. Not all of us live and breathe computers like my dad lived and breathed COBOL...lol

[doktor5000]

Well, you're talking about bootloaders, then removable drives, and then about your laptop. And in the first post you mention you're searching for a new laptop with 2 drives.

What do you actually require?

[BrotherAdam]

A new brain maybe. I mean, they have these new (at least to me) drives called msata... and tehy have these flash hard drives... and the world is supposed to be switching to tablets... I want a new laptop and I want two hard drives on it... since I amold, and remember the zipdrive, I want to know if the msata is like the zipdrive... and does that mean I can then switch from windows to linux simply by switching the msata drives? Or am I mis-understanding how it works? I have suffered more than one hard drive crash in the last few years and so want redundancy... because I have lost 4 books very close to publishing, in my own mind at least, although editors had not said so yet... and so am trying to figure out the best and cheapest method because until I sell a few books I am broke... I work for some very cheap employers...

SO, I am not trying to confuse you guys, but I am confused as it seems the more technology we get the more they try to hide the tires from view and confuse us with how good the stereo sounds...

So, if I am too confusing for you I apologise. But I want (not need maybe but) a laptop with two hard drives and a cd drive so I can carry it to field sites and write, draw up houses, play cards, and look up stuff online... oh, and read the occasional book from Amazon.... Simple, really...

[Lebarhon]

mSATA is SATA adaptation for netbooks and only fits with SSD (flash hard drives). They have the same bandwith. mSATA isn't new and will be soon replaced by M.2 (and SATA will be replaced by SATA express for the laptops and desktops).
These protocols have nothing to do with a switching technology like was zipdrive. You are right to fear HDD crashes but I thing it is better to have backups on external drives (working with USB 3) or to use RAID technology.