Drawing, gamming desktop

[RobbieThe1st]

Multiple harddisks for multiple OS's works fine. However, your PC can only boot from /one/ of them. When the system first powers on, it will look at which ever harddisk is selected in the bios as the boot disk, and run the code on that.
This means that, in order to be able to boot from multiple disks/partitions, you need the code that runs to be a bootloader that allows you to select the OS you want to run. Linux's GRUB works great for that.
You can, however, setup each other harddisk as it's own bootable disk, so that if you remove the other two, the bios will fall back to your remaining disk, excecute the code on that, and -- if you've set it up correctly -- boot from that. If it's not setup correctly, your system will just sit there with an error like "Non system disk, press any key to retry".
As another consideration, Linux will recognise a Windows install and provide you with an option to boot into it, but Windows will not recognise Linux. Unless you are up to manually setting things up, you need to install the Windows system first, then the Linux one.

[SirSlaughter]

Robbie, whenever I read one of your posts, this always pops up into my head:

[leoian]

Even on my mac Linux is my safety backup os, if Mac crash it's still usefull and ''datasafe'' to use to have 2 os on a pc

[DariusL]

Even on my mac Linux is my safety backup os, if Mac crash it's still usefull and ''datasafe'' to use to have 2 os on a pc

Indeed. Otherwise you have to plug another mac to it and reboot in "target mode" to save the data. I learned this the hard way.
(Note to self: sudo commands can be dangerous)

[Ryusen]

I already have some ssd on my laptop, but it's expensive that's true but doing a mix of hhd and ssd is a nice option.

This is what I currently do. My boot drive is a 256GB SSD, which is also where I keep things like Microsoft Office, games, and programs that I'd like to load very quickly. My total startup time, from the windows screen to a usable desktop, is about 5 seconds. I highly, highly reccommend it. For general storage of pictures, my CDs, etc I have a 1TB mechanical hard drive as well. It works well for mass-storage that doesn't need to be accessed quickly (do I really want to waste expensive SSD space with all that music? No.).

If you can swing even a small SSD for just your OS and a few choice programs, you won't regret it in the least. I know I don't.

[leoian]

The big problem is the serials, I had some issues with some game and softwares with my different os, because I own the soft only on 1 os, that's pretty annoying.
By te way I have no clue what I can do for this kind of issues, I tried to deal with the different os but you have to be careful because after a while the serial can be locked.

[RobbieThe1st]

Only Windows has a serial/hardware lock, and it shouldn't lock you out just by reinstalling, only by reinstalling on different hardware.
Also -- at least with XP -- you could call up MS and have them reset your key; takes a bit on the phone, though.

[Ryusen]

Only Windows has a serial/hardware lock, and it shouldn't lock you out just by reinstalling, only by reinstalling on different hardware.
Also -- at least with XP -- you could call up MS and have them reset your key; takes a bit on the phone, though.

Specifically, I believe it's locked to your motherboard. If you switch our hard drives, video cards, CPUs, etc. then you shouldn't have any issues. It's only when you upgrade to a new mobo that you'll need to either call up to Microsoft or just purchase another version, depending on your situation.

[Tygron]

Unless that's only for XP, Windows Vista and i'm assuming 7 doesn't do that. Swapped out a mobo, CPU, and RAM on this machine running OEM Vista 32bit and didn't have to type in the product key at all. Then I swapped out the case and added a new heatsink and it decided it needed the key again, but after a week or two of not changing. Because it's odd like that. And no, switching out the case shouldn't do anything to your system because it has no idea what so ever. Let alone the CPU heatsink. Unless it's some fancy doodad that plugs into a PCIe or PCI or USB header. And I can't say i've ever seen any of those.

[RobbieThe1st]

When the hardware changes enough -- and it might only check every few days -- it'll request reactivation. And enough reactivations on different hardware profiles later(like 5 in XP), your key will be locked out.

[leoian]

By the way I'm looking for a spider for The twokinds images/update but i can't find a good one for mac :/

[philip284]

so one to download all the comic pages?
There is the one I wrote but you would have to install a php server.

[leoian]

No it's to download all the /images section

[RobbieThe1st]

Don't have anything like that - Unless you can get a listing of names.
If you've got a listing of names, all you need to do is use curl(or any other tool) to grab the list of URLs

[philip284]

well unless you spam the server with all possible names.