I currently have two hard drives in my computer. I installed fedora core 5 on my second hard drive. On my primary I have windows xp. Now that I have installed linux, I have no idea how to get it to boot. When I start my computer, it goes straight into windows. If I change the bios to boot from the second hard drive, it gets stuck after trying to verify the vmi pool data. I am compleaty new at linux and could use some help

Here is a link that may shed some light on your problem.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm

You will notice this seems to be a windoze message, I dought it has anything to do with your linux install.


The bigger question for me is, How were you planning on booting these two systems?

There are several options.

During your linux install, you could have installed a boot manager, the two standard ones for linux are Lilo ( older one ) and Grub ( newer and more flexible. ) It would appear you didn't install either. You can set up dual boot with either.

Second, Change in the BIOS the boot order of the hardware. Looks like this is what you tried, doesn't look like it is set up correctly.

Third, a boot floppy.

I think you need to decide which way to go, do some research, and implement one.

By far the most common way is set up Lilo or Grub. If you search this forum and look throught the tutorials, you will find lots of information.

Ideally - Ok one of the easiest ways, is to "put" the bootloader on the first section of the first hard drive - yes that means it overwrites the windows one.

Thats not some weird suggestion, it's entirely normal.

Personally I'd suggest that the easiest way of doing this, is to re-run the linux install and tell the installer to put it there. It's gonna be by far, the fastest and easiest way of achieving that. That either p*****g about trying to make the windows bootloader boot the linux (yes it can be done but you'd have to google for instructions) or changing the BIOS settings or even a boot floppy/CD.

I'm guessing that camorri has "hit the nail on the head" and you overlooked the bootloader install or just put it in the wrong place.

regards

John

Have a look at the Secion A of the 2nd link of my signature.

If your FC5 doesn't boot while it is at the front of the booting queue (by bios switching) restore its boot loader Grub by Task B4 or B5 descibed in my last link.