Recomend a new HD/ OS

[Passive Anubis]

I am currently running a windows (service pack 2) desktop pc. My motherboard has 2 SATA ports and 2 dual channel IDE ports (total of 4 ide). My current hard drive is the WDC WD1600JB-00GVA0 (IDE). I am wondering if i could buy a new hard drive and have it run Linux and switch between the 2 OS's and hard drives. If i am to do this, what is a good hd to work with this system (and how do you suggest configuring the 2 hd's), as well as a good linux OS to start with.

I would apreciate any advice/reccomendations, this is my first linux atempt, so i know absoulely nothing at this point tin time. BTW, the rest of my hardware is in my profile if you are curious.

thanks for the time.

 

[Passive Anubis]

here are my other specs:

P4 ht - 3.2 ghz
Kingston 1 gb ddr 400
Geforce 6800 GT
WD 160 gb hd (7200 rpm)
abit as8 -lga775
dvd player (52x)
Dvd RW combo x2
Netgear 54mbps 802.11 g/b
aspire x dreamer 2
Thermal take 120mm
Aspire 90mm x4

 

[Kaos]

Ill say it before everyone else does:

start with ubuntu.

 

[Dangman]

Any hard drive would work. Now once you have a new hard drive, download a linux distro. I'm gonna recommend Ubuntu since it is your first time.

Once you download the Ubuntu .iso, burn it onto a CD.

After that, install Linux.

I think my instructions are a bit inadequate so I have some links to share:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6104490811311898236

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56723

http://www.hezardastan.org/breezy_xp_dualboot/en/

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html

BTW the articles are for previous versions of Ubuntu but they should be fine for the latest version of Ubuntu. Read them throughly so you'd have an idea of what you're doing.

Good luck!