How can I add Fedorca core 3 to Windows boot Sector? So that I can choose which OS to load when turning my computer on. Fedora is on a separate hd if that helps any. Thanks!

Your best bet would be to let grub or lilo handle the booting for you. This will present you with the option during startup of which os to install. It appears, from my searching anyway, that the disk geo problems have been resolved with FC3 (anyone please feel free to correct, as I no longer dual boot). It should automatically detect the windows partition for you during install. Please post any further questions.

Well the problem is my windows xp is installed on two SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration. I could not get GRUB to boot windows. Thats why in my case it would be great if I could just edit the windows boot loader.

so far as my research has revealed, the ms boot loader don't do non M$ os's; big surprise right? There was a way to fool NT4.0 boot loader into doing it, but i don't recall it, and i think with the advent of the newer os's it ain't possible anymore. But let me tell you how I did it at home. Got two HDD's, one on a scsi controller(had xp on it, full disk) other is an ide(master, channel 1) i wanted to put linux on. So here is what i did:

1 -- ghost windows disk to another machine(i happen to have a windows file server)
2 -- Install fc3:
a. put "/boot" first thing on scsi disk-ext file system--128mb
b. put "swap" second thing on scsi disk--525mb
c. put "/" on ide disk
3 -- Click advanced boot loader options check box, reorder drives so scsi drive is first, as i have my bios set to boot scsi before ide, and install GRUB to MBR of scsi disk(NOT THE FIRST PART, the MBR)
4 -- FC installs, puts linux on second disk, boot and swap on the first. now i go back and ghost xp into the empty space "behind" /boot and swap.(don't forget to make /boot active and a primary)
5 -- boot back into linux edit grub.conf to have the following for XP:
.
.
title Windows XP
unhide (hd0,2)-->3rd part on first disk, which is the scsi disk because of what I did in step 3
rootnoverify (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
makeactive
.
.

That's how i did mine. I would think a variation of the same would work for you, regardless of wether or not you're using a RAID or not. So long as it registers with BIOS i think a technique similar to mine would work. For some reason i could not go the other way, put /boot swap and / all on ide and trying to boot XP didn't work. I even tried a couple diff grub configs. i'm a rookie though so i'm sure one of the veterans here could have gotton it to work.

There must be a gazillion "how-tos" on the net for this.
- install your Linux bootloader to a partition (*NOT* the MBR)
- dd if=/dev/hda? of=/dev/fd0/summit bs=512 count=1
- copy the floppy file to c:\linux.bin (pick a name)
- add it to boot.ini as
c:\linux.bin="Linux" under [operating systems]

Choose grub as your bootloader - then you only have to do this once.
Floppy use is optional if you have shared drives.

Maybe this will help. What you want is what I do on my system.


My Fedora Core 3 Install

This by all means may not work for everybody and I can't explain why it happened I can just
guess. I've been working with Red Hat since version 6.2. My company is going to change all our
operating systems mid next year to Red Hat Enterprise Edition. The reason why I like Fedora is it's
always a challenge to make it work when your running on the cutting edge of hardware.
I want to thank all the people and their suggestions on this forum.

I run an Intel D865perl motherboard with 2.6 gig Intel processor with 1 gig of ram. Two 160 gig
hard drives. The first hard drive is for Windows XP. Second hard drive is for Fedora and data
backups.

Drive 2 the first 40 gig is Fedora and the second 120 gig is for files backups and Norton ghost 2003
images. Which I never doing anything without a current image file it will save your butt.

Install Fedora Core 3 on the second hard drive and use the automatic partitioning tool but don't
put grub on your Master MBR put it on the first sector on your second drive. When you get to the
Boot Loader Configuration screen make sure you check the Configure advanced boot loader
options. The next screen will give the option where to put Grub Boot Loader. It should say like
hda or hdb. Hda is usually your XP Drive. From their finish loading. Put it on hdb.

Now duel booting using XP boot manager (My Preference. I don't like third party boot managers.)

Use your rescue CD to boot to Fedora.
Hit enter at the boot prompt.
Hit enter for English
Hit enter for us
Setup network select no
At the rescue screen select continue
At the next rescue screen hit enter
Now you have a prompt sh-3.00#
At the prompt type in chroot /mnt/sysimage
If hdb2 is Not your boot partition, change it as appropriate. Type: df then determine which hda#
Run the command dd if=/dev/hdb2 of=boot.lnx bs=512 count=1
You should see
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
Type ls and you should see a file named boot.lnx
Put a blank floppy disk in your a: drive
Type mcopy boot.lnx a:
It should have copied the file to your a: drive

Now reboot to Windows

Copy boot.lnx to your root directory
Right click on your boot.ini file select properties and uncheck read only click ok
Double click your boot.ini file and add one line at the end it should read
C:\boot.lnx="Fedora Core 3". Then save it. When you reboot your XP boot
manager will come up and you can chose Fedora it jumps to the Grub Boot manager on your
second drive.

My file looks like this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)(1)\windows
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(0)(1)\windows="Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2"
/fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
c:\boot.lnx="RedHat Fedora Core 3 Project"

You call it anything you want

This will be a super newb question but would the rescue cd be the forth one? ...or is it something I must create within Linux?

It's number five. The install disks go 1 thru 4. You can download the image for the rescue disk.

ok i did a google search and found it. Thanks!

After I did everything, Harley, I got to the part where Windows boot manager comes up and asks which do I want to boot into. I chose Fedora Core 3 and I got and error that read "Grub Hard Disk Error"......any ideas?

Ok nevermind. I got it working. It was a BIOS problem that caused the Error. Thanks Harley. I really appreciate your help!!

Your welcome