Some questions

[ahmed]

Hello people , I made my USB boot able and made it work , but i want to know that what should I do now ? i get the screen of ubuntu when i boot through my usb . I tried run ubuntu persistently , there's another option Install ubuntu , but should I install it ? will if effect my WinXP ? and is there a possibility to install it in usb ^_^ ?

[ZekeDragon]

If you install Ubuntu on your hard drive, yes, it will affect your Windows XP (by eliminating it entirely). However, I believe Ubuntu comes with some options to repartition your hard drive for a new OS even if Windows is already there. This isn't always safe, so I'd still back-up your hard drive, but it can be done. Finally, the best option if you have it is to simply purchase a new hard drive, install it in your machine, and then install Ubuntu on that hard drive instead. That should leave Windows completely intact, and give you a new Ubuntu dual-boot.

[Hignar]

Assuming it's a recent version of Ubuntu then the partitioning part of the install will give you the option of installing Ubuntu along side windows and will even give you a graphical display of your hard drive with a slider to chose how much space you want to give ubuntu.

As Zeke said, you should backup anything important from windows. You don't want to lose everything if it goes wrong and, although I've never had an issue, partitioning always comes with a slight risk. Generally speaking partitioning a drive is safe and easy to do, but make sure you understand what you are doing and double check EVERYTHING before writing changes to disk.

A separate hard drive is probably the safest option but isn't always practical i.e. you're wanting to install onto a laptop.

Once your done and you reboot you'll be presented with a menu that will let you chose to load either windows or ubuntu.