I have a long but always shallow familiarity with Linux and have been trying to install FC10 X86-64 as dual boot over Vista on a Dell Inspiron with 300 GB. I have partitions RECOVERY(ntfs), OS(ntfs), Dno name, ntfs) and SDA6 (ext). (I am reading from the Vista utility - this is my first ever try with Vista, which is why I wanted the dual boot and am not well up on Vista). I ran an apparently successful install into all free space (about 90 GB) from the FC10 DVD and chose to use the GRUB loader and place it in the Boot sector of SDA6 (I think) rather than the MBR. I told it the other OS was to be named Vista. Now I get Vista if I load from the HDD, or occasionally "bad boot disk". I can get in with Knoppix or the FC10 DVD on repair, but not from load local installation. I found a grub.conf file, of which the content is below, but I don't know what to do next. Having done a lot of data transfer to Vista I am scared stiff of losing access to that.
Thanks for any suggestions -
Andreas
---------------------------------------
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,5)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda6
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,5)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64 ro root=UUID=6c88f9a1-871f-4c59-98a2-492ca7f220f1 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.x86_64.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
---------------------- end of grub.conf

Then you are not using Grub to boot but the vista bootloader and you will need to modify vista bootloader to include Fedora. Have you done that? If not, probably the easiest thing to do is download EasyBCD and use it to include Fedora.

This worked brilliantly and I now get Vista boot menu and in to Fedora or Vista. Grub offers the choice of Fedora or to return to Vista (which does not work, yet) but my next problem is no GUI in Fedora. I have tried startx, which is all I remember from the last time I tried to do this 10 years ago, but it says it finds no screen. Any quick tips?

If you open a terminal and run the command 'fdisk -l' as root, you will get your partition information which should enable you to put a correct entry int /boot/grub/menu.lst or grub.conf file for Fedora. This will enable you to boot vista after booting Fedora. If you're not sure about the entry, post menu.lst here. The entry you showed on your first post for vista is (hd0,1) which is probably the Dell recovery partition. Might try changing it to (hd0,2) or just check fdisk output for ntfs partition.

Not really up on graphics configuration so I can't help with that.

maybe you haven't installed the video driver for your fedora.

Really appreciate your kindness. I solved the problem doing effectively that, following a good post at http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=207320 which gave some advice even a dummy could follow and found my video card as Anaconda had not been able to.

Discourteous of me not to close the issue. Now it is back to the truly nightmarish issue of getting Outlook 2000 to work on Vista. If I can get my ten-year email archive out from Outlook and into Thunderbird I might actually give up Vista except for watching videos.