Add old SATA drive with Data

[quantumstitch]

Hi All,
I installed 32-bit Ubuntu a while back. I have lots of data (photos, movies, documents, etc.) on a second HDD. I would like to remove this second HDD and install a 64 bit linux distro on the boot drive (which has nothing but / and the home directories - already backed up on the second drive). Can I simply unplug the second, perform the install and then remount the second drive after the install? It is using the ext3 filesystem. Please advise.

Here's the output of df -hT


/dev/sda1 ext3 457G 202G 233G 47% /
tmpfs tmpfs 1012M 0 1012M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun tmpfs 1012M 328K 1012M 1% /var/run
varlock tmpfs 1012M 0 1012M 0% /var/lock
udev tmpfs 1012M 2.8M 1009M 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 1012M 12K 1012M 1% /dev/shm
lrm tmpfs 1012M 2.0M 1010M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.27-9-generic/volatile
/dev/sdb1 ext3 463G 337G 102G 77% /storage

Thanks for any help.
-stitch

[taurus]

Yes. However, you don't have to unplug the second harddrive. Just tell the installer to install it on the first harddrive and mount the second harddrive somewhere. Just remember not to format the second harddrive or your data on it will be erased. But if you want to feel safe, unplug the second harddrive before you install if you wish. Then, you can just reconnect it and add an entry in /etc/fstab to mount it automatically each time you boot.

[quantumstitch]

Thanks a bunch. I figured I could do that but I just wanted to be sure.