I decided it was time to try linux so i downloaded a few isos and i was on my way. I used partition magic and went through the install another operating system thing and that went well untill i had actually installed linux. Now i can not get back to windows. im not even to sure is windows is anywere on ym computer anymore. when i start up my computer it goes to this GRUB menu and i can choose only redhat linux. i dont really know anything at all about linux because i was just going to try to see what it was like. so now im stuck with a computer with only linux and im also worried that all of my information from windows is gone. Is there anything i can do before i just take the thing to best buy to see if they can get it back to normal?

hmm... shouldnt be too hard, its probably just that grub doesnt have an entry for windows in it. go to your terminal (in redhat), type su, then tyupe in the root password, and, once youre root, type fdisk -l and post the output here.

ok i get:

under system there are 3 things. linux, linux, and linux swap.

is that all the info you need? does that mean windows is gone?

hmm... thats all i get, and i dont have a windows setup on my pc... does redhat come with any configuration utilities? i use mandrake, so i wouldnt know.

i really have no idea. at this point im looking for an old copy of xp i had around here somewere. once i have my xp cd can i just put it in and rebooth the computer or is it going to be muc more confusing than that? how about my system restore cd. that would take me back to win 98 but i dont care as long as i can get back to being able to get work done on my pc.

try using the rescue option of the win xp cd. boot from it, and i think it drops you to a command prompt (if it doesnt, try somehow i think), and when it does, type fixmbr.

Is my output of fdisk -l

I however, only have linux on my disk.

You said you have linux, linux and swap.
That's the default red-hat setup for /root /boot and swap...

If you don't see an entry under the system column for fat32 ntfs or somesuch, then I'd say you told redhat to take the whole disk during installation... Sorry...

--Shade

you must have overlapped your windows system, because when i installed my red hat for the first time i make it sure i have a free space(not fat nor linux, just free space) and during the installation i chose the option choose keep all partitions and use free space.. so after that i had a dual boot...

yes, it could have been that linux used your entire disk....

did you not make any backup of your files before making 'such decision'?

well, if that's the case, don't fret, i think every newbie would come up with the same experience

heh no fortunately i had backups of alot of the stuff on my PC. its a sony vaio so it has all sorts of exencive software that came with it but it all on the recovery cds and anything else i ever make that is important is uploaded to my webspace so i can just re download it.

thanks for all your help everyone. My friend eric has informed me that installing linux is much easier with dual hard drives. so im going to try it again once i pick up another drive.

well its not hard to have dual booting system on a single hd drive,
just take care next time to install windows and spare some free diskspace for linux (3GB will be more then enough) and during linux installtion choose this free space and creates swap, boot, roort partitions on that space.
Install grub on your mbr.
that all you need, then grub will give you option: "menu" during startup to choose from which OS you wana boot from.

ok how about this. this is why i was not able to chose the use existing hard drive space option last time.

when i select that option i get a message thats says something like "could no allocate partition as it is not set to something partition" I cant remember the message exactly but it wont let me do itunless i select the remove all partitions option. and i deffenitly dont want to do that.

I did get windows back ont he machine just so you know. Im on my PC again finaly.

good for you