and..i've got some new questions now.

the data-only GRUB remains the "Active" partition as long as i'm booting to Linux.
when i boot to windows, the C-drive automatically becomes "Active" and any restarts after that would boot me into Windows(unless i go to the "Disk Management" and make Grub as "Active").
is it suppossed to act like that?
i'm o.k with it though. infact, i think i prefer this behaviour to selecting the options on every boot.
however, i just wanted to clear the doubt.

and secondly, the highest resolution available to me in RHEL is 800x600..whereas my display is 1280x800.
everything looks so uncomforably huge!!...is there some way i can change that?

lnxlrnr,

Your partition looks normal as hda1 to hda4 are the reserved primary partitions. In using logical partitions you gave up hda3 and converted it into an extended partition which is just the boundary for hda5 to hda8. As it happens you managed to put hda4 behind hda8 and use Partition type C which is Fat32 in LBA mode, allowing that DOs partition accessible in large hard disk. The reason that hda4 being created after hda8 is because hda4 was unused but a reserved primary partition. Have the same space been used for a logical partition it would have been hda9.

Coming back to your 1st question and answer is yes. You are doing something totally out of the ordinary by asking Windows to boot "another" system by switching on the booting flag of that partition. It is a very creafty move. You and I are possibly the only people who do such thing as I haven't come across it before myself and doubt if majority of the PC user understand the principle. To facilitate the booting process I would advice you to make a bootable Grub floppy (or burn a bootable Grub CD) and use it to do the switching whenever you don't want to boot up WIndows first to do the switching for you. In a Grub prompt, which you get from booting up a Grub floppy or CD it is a simple command to make hda4 active
Please notte Grub counts from 0 and so the 4th partition of the first disk hda4 is known to Grub as (hd0,3).

For methods of creating a bootable Grub floppy or CD please follow the Task A in the last link of my siganture.

On the second question you need to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf or its equivalent in RHEL to select another resolution. It is possible that you have to match the video driver and the scanning frequencies first before able to use the higher resolutions as Linux distros provide only the generic drivers. Start a new thread as users of RHEL can give you a better advice as my Red Hat is the free version 9. Instead of xorg the equivalent in the older distros may use X86Cinfig or something like that but it would still be in /etc/X11 subdirectory and the configuration file is essentially the same.

that sounds good.
i've learned a lot in this thread..
i appreciate ur efforts in getting things into my head. thnx again.
its good to know that what we have tried here is innovative.
we'll try to spread this knowledge further to the Linux community.

i'll start a new thread and try to fix the resolution issue of RHEL.

i don't want to rush things here, but i wanted to know how does the wingrub work?
i've heared it saves a backup of the "original" windows MBR and then appends some lines to the "boot.ini" to give us the boot options thru Windows. i've noticed that people normally set its "Base" in C-drive.. what does that mean?and well...how good is it?...does it hamper the performance in any way?..is it easy to configure in case i need to uninstall Linux or add another Linux?
(should i start these questions in a new thread?)
i hope i'm not trying to go too fast.

The standard way a Win2k/XP to muplti-boot other system is to round up the first sector of a foreign operating system inside the root partition (the "c" drive where NTLDR boot loader must have its boot.ini, detectntldr & ntldr files). This is becuase Windows official does not recognise other systems and so a user can see foreign partitions.

The foreign boot loader (1st sector is called the MBR if it is the first partition of the first bootable disk as that is what the Bios must read when isntructed to boot from a hard disk as the Bios does not read any other partition) is for NTLDR to load into memory so that the control of the PC is passed over to the foreign system if the user has selected it.

I believe Grub is treated as a foreign system here.

The problem with NTLDR is its system files are protected and the above-mentioned files are also hidden making editing difficult. You can have a go at it. The Task E4 of the last link in my signature summarised the steps need.

It will be good if you try it out yourself. NTLDR is no different to Grub and Lilo and so you will be able to appreciate their similarities and differences.

The backup of Windows MBR is a waste of time to me as it can be "restored" any time we want using a Dos bootable floppy or any Win2k/xp installation CD, all described in the last link of my signature.

You obviously enjoy knowing your way around and you will find Linux is a paradise for you because the knowledge is in the public domain. Also being free from the commercial considerations you will find Linux technically formidable and whatever you learn today will remain useful for a very long time because Linux cannot be replaced like a MS system does for the purpose of profit. It is just being improved on all the time by the common folks all over the world.

yes ofcourse...i remember now, we can get windows MBR back using the installation CD.
this was an excellent conversation as it gave effective results.
i guess we are done with this forum.
thnx saikee for all ur replies..its been very helpful
i'll stay in touch to further explore Linux...coz its a huge world in itself.

take care pal

hi saikee..
howz u..
there's one more question i wanna ask and its got nothing to do with linux.
am i suppossed to close this thread?..how do i do that?

lnxlrnr,

Greeting.

Don't know how to close a thread here as I seem to answer all the time and rarely ask a question. If I have a question I usually ask in justLinux as members are more technically orientated with in-depth knowledge. LinuxQuestion.org also have excellent moderators too.

Usually the owner of a thread has an option to click and mark the thread "solved" but I think no one is going to send to your jail for not doing it, especial during Christmas. You can safely roll out the turkey and enjoy it.

lol...
gotcha.
merry christmas.