I have two hard disks: hda with Win2000 and hdb with Fedora. As I installed fedora i had to install grub (seems lilo is not available, is that right?). But Grub won't load win2000. Due to a previous Linux installation on hda now win2000 won't load even by itself (that is, if i power off hdb , now I get a nice Lilo L 99 99 99... error this is my roughly sketched situation, I don't pretend to be exaustive.

Now, the questions:
-how do I find out where (which dev) is grub installed, eventually how do I remove it without wiping out partition tables?
-how do I repair lilo without deleting MBR? I have no idea how to write lilo.conf, and I want to be sure NOT to make ANY mistake. I guess I could also remove lilo and write it back anew.
-I downloaded and installed (with synaptic) lilo, which (again) seems not to be available with fedora. But this doesn't mean that lilo is installed as bootloader, rrright?

Really, I tried to read man lilo, man grub, info grub, man lilo.conf, but the problem is newbies like me require step by step instructions. It doesn't mean that I need someone to do the work for me, but it means that I don't even know where to start from (and MBR is a pretty delicate stuff to just try and hack it

I hope someone will have the patience to read this and give me simple instructions

Thanks folks,
neri

Im no expert but I can get you started as I have done it a few times,and I was nervous also,I had xp so I booted with the install disk and pressed r for recovery,then it will ask something and you want command line,there you can ask for help,but I typed \c fix mbr or something close to that,that will fix the mbr,next you need to install grub from the fedora cd and you are back,search this site as there are lots of imformation as it is common.I am going to stick with what I have now,and try to stop experimenting with new dist. because sometimes the mbr gets messed up,one time I could not boot at all unless I unpluged my hard drive after a fedora test install,good luck david

Do you boot into Fedora by setting hdb as the first boot device in bios?

I boot into fedora, but hdb is NOT the first boot device. It goes CD, floppy, and then C (hda). Comprookie, I didn't understand very much what you said

Btw, don't I erase the partition table if I make fdisk /MBR?

What happens if I remove GRUB and install LILO? Here is the lilo.conf i made, but I don't dare to try it...

boot = /dev/hda
delay = 1000
compact
vga = normal
root = /dev/hdb1
read-only
image = /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl
label = fedORA
other = /dev/hda1
label = win2000
table = /dev/hda


Will the hard disks explode in furious rage? Or just laugh in my face?

Oh, and I made a big mistake: I uninstalled a linux distro without uninstalling lilo.

this is my actual grub conf...

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hdb1
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hdb1
default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2115.nptl)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd0,0)

hope it helps...

looks alright to me, doesn Fedora use an initrd?

do you mean something like /boot/initrd-2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.img ?

Hey, don't stop the feedback, please! Really, even if it SEEMS alright, it's not booting windows. I guess the mbr is all messed by the previous lilo installation.

is there "chainloader +1" after
?