Hello everyone,
I have very little experience with Linux so I decided to install Fedora 8 KDE in what should have been a dual boot configuration with the existing Windows xp. The install went ok and when I rebooted I saw the two choices and booted into Fedora. Fedora loaded and I immediately was notified of updates available which I downloaded and installed. then I rebooted once more into fedora and the problems began. The error a"unexpected inconsistency: run fsck manually" appeared and I followed what appeared to be a check/fix procedure on the filesystem. I entered y to every fix request and then Fedora loaded and worked fine(as far as I could tell). Then I decided to check booting into win xp and that's when the bootloader presented 2 choices for Fedora along with Win xp. When I selected Win xp I got the "System Recovery" option screen. I quit the system recovery and rebooted into Fedora which loaded without problems. I would appreciate if someone could give me some assistance on how to access the Win xp again. Please tell me what info I should post(and how to get it since I'm not exactly a pro!). Following is fdisk -l although I fear it may not be much help.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4b36bdea

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 547 8930 67344480 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 1 546 4385713+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda3 8931 8955 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 8956 9729 6217155 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8956 9729 6217123+ 8e Linux LVM

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/dm-0: 4227 MB, 4227858432 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 514 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 2080 MB, 2080374784 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 252 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x30307800

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table


And below is the grub.conf file:

# 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 (hd0,2)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
# initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=8
splashimage=(hd0,2)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.24.3-34.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24.3-34.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.24.3-34.fc8.img
title Fedora (2.6.23.1-42.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.1-42.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.img
title WINDOWS XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1


Thanks in advance for bearing with me.

In your grub.conf (urg, Does Fedora still use that ??? - I thought they'd finally given that away ...) change the XP stanza

Hello syg00,
what you indicated WORKED PERFECTLY!!Thanks so much! I was beginning to regret having ever taken the decision to try LINUX but now I'm psiched again. by the way, would I delete the repetition regarding the FEDORA (shown below) in order to eliminate one of the two FEDORA choices in the bootloader menu?

title Fedora (2.6.24.3-34.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.24.3-34.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.24.3-34.fc8.img
title Fedora (2.6.23.1-42.fc8)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.1-42.fc8 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.img

Nope.
Always pays to have a fallback in case an update is broken for some reason.
The package manager should look after cleaning that up.

You're absolutely right. However I didn't imagine that an update could cause so much trouble, also, it was the first time I had booted into Fedora and I still had to figure out how to backup data from Fedora. In short, I don't have a backup. But thanks again for your help.