Here is the situation in short. I purchased Linux RedHat 9.0 to finally get a chance to see how this OS works. So, I partitioned my primary hard drive which was running XP Professional with Partition Magic v8.. to give Linux 9 Personal Computer option 2.8GB of drive space.. so I do that,, and I restart the machine let XP do its thing.. then Load Linux.. linux installs its great... Sooo I try to get back inside of windows XP. and it won't go back,, I can't get anything as a selector to move from the Linux partition back over to the XP Professional.. So I get rid of the Windows XP Partition and then reload XP again... thinking that perhaps would solve my problem, it didn't. I reload XP and now I have the problem reversed I can see the Linux partition and view its files,,, but I can't load the OS.. I can only see content through Partition Magic,, What did I do wrong what do I need to do.. Or is there something crazy easy that I didn't do that someone in Linux land is laughing there head off going,: All I have to do is......" Someone help!!! Please!!!!

You need to use a boot loader.

Most people use either lilo or grub

RedHat 9 comes with both. Use your boot floppy to get into RedHat and setup the bootloader config file and run the boot loader install


/etc/grub.conf example, not likely to work on your system as is


#boot=/dev/hda
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
default=0
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-20.9)
root (hd0,1)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-20.9 ro root=/dev/hda6 hdc=ide-scsi
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-20.9.img
title WinXP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1


install command for grub

grub-install /dev/hda



lilo.conf example, will not work as is on your system

prompt
timeout=50
default=linux
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
append="hdc=ide-scsi"
vga=791
lba32

other=/dev/hda1
optional
label=WinXP

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-27.7.x
label=redhat_7.3
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-27.7.x.img

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-13.7
label=linux.bak
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-13.7.img

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-18.7
label=linux.bak1
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-18.7.img

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-19.7
label=linux.bak12
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-19.7.img

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20.7
label=linux
root=/dev/hda5
read-only
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-20.7.img


command to install lilo

lilo





post your partition info

fdisk -l /dev/hda

so we can see what you have



man, why do I have all of those kernels? Geesh!

Thanks I will give that a try...

yes but make sure you know where your partitions are, what I'm saying is the two examples above won't work unless you have the proper partitions, they are from two different machines and won't even work on each other.

This is what I did just to let you know.... .I deleted again... Linux Redhat 9.0 recreated partition for it the same way.. I actually ran!!! What Linux highly recommended the Startup Disk Creator!!!!!! After I finished loading up linux again... it restarted booted up loaded in XP Professional! No problems... I restart the machine put the boot disk in and guess what!!! I got Linux 9.0!! Is there no way I can get both OSs' to come up on a boot selector... Or am I just going to have to settle with putting a boot disk to load RedHat 9.0 each time?? not complaining but curious!! Thanks for all your help!... Oh last time I did this both OSs' came up on Linux boot select, but when Windows XP would load it would go into checkdisk then do a fatal error!!

yes you need to use a boot loader