dual boot fc4 and win xp pro
 

I've looked around and saw many threads about dual boot, but I still can't seem to get anythign to work. I had FC4 and windows on a dual boot (with a nice long pause on the OS Selection screen to pick between FC4 and Windows). Then I had hardware problems - my power supply went bad. I was testing parts (I originally thought it was the Motherboard) and loaded my dual boot system on another computer. Unfortunately, it didnt' like it and messed up the boot files. So, I got my original system to work, reinstalled the hard drives and now it hangs on GRUB. I have Windows on the master drive, and linux on a 20GB partition on the slave drive.

Is it my grub, or do I have it installed wrong (or not at all) in the MBR? Any suggestions woudl be great.

Thanks.

What do you mean it hangs on GRUB? Does everything start to load and you get the GRUB prompt? Is there a GRUB error message? A bit more info might be helpful.

Grub
 

Sorry, I'm new to the linux world, I have only ran the OS a few times. Anyway, the board posts and then I get
BOOT FROM CD:
GRUB _ (blinking cursor)

That sounds like GRUB can't find the needed files to boot. You can actually boot your machine from this prompt if you know what to tell GRUB. I've borked mine enough times that I keep a hard copy of my grub.conf file around. That way I don't to reboot from a live CD to fix it. Here is the GRUB manual that will tell you how to do this or install GRUB or whatever GRUB-related questions you may have.

Anyway, sounds like you'll need to edit your grub.conf (menu.lst) file to properly reflect your setup. The grub.conf file usually lives in /boot/grub/. Assuming you don't have this file memorized, you'll need to get a live CD (e.g., Knoppix), boot-up, mount the partition where your grub.conf file lives, edit the file, and then re-boot.

So, even though I can't type at the prompt, I can still save the system? I need to put the Fedora disks back in and do a repair? when it says specify the root, is that the / or the /boot? Do I want the grub to be loaded over the MBR? on my master drive with windows?

Sorry for all the questions. I will be taking a linux class at school soon, and wanted to get a jump start on the software.

I know its long winded but the way I dual boot at home is to change booting order of the Hard Drives in bios

You can't type at the GRUB prompt? That's new information and may change things. You can still save any files you want (probably), but maybe not the FC4 install.
That's not what I meant. You can get Linux distros that will run directly from a CD. Knoppix is one of them. You can boot from this CD and do "anything" you can do from a HDD installed OS. I would try the live CD route before I reinstalled FC4; reinstallation, IMO, is the last resort.
Did you read the GRUB manual? It explains all this.

Ah, finally got it all working. Turns out it was something within the bios...my husband actually figured it out. He reset the CMOS back to optimized default.

Thanks for all the help.