I have a dual boot system.. WinXP on primary and FC3 on secondary drive

After reformatting the mbr on my primary drive (containing grub boot loader)
my system now boots directly into Windows. If I change my BIOS to boot to the drive with my FC3 install I receive the error: 'Missing Operating System'.

I have run 'Rescue Mode' from my FC3 Rescue CD and have also repaired my install using the CD1 of the FC3 install cd's but I get the same error when trying to boot from this drive.

During reinstall of FC3 I chose 'Upgrade/Reinstall' and I selected that I did not want a boot loader. The installer suggested I will need to make a boot floppy but I wasn't sure how. I got no further than the first cd before the installer prompted that installation was complete. And of course, when I reboot to that drive I receive the infamous 'Missing Operating System' error

How can I boot directly to Linux from this drive?

"After reformatting the mbr on my primary drive (containing grub boot loader)
my system now boots directly into Windows."

"During reinstall of FC3 I chose 'Upgrade/Reinstall' and I selected that I did not want a boot loader."

There has to be a boot loader, and it sounds like your system is now using the Windows boot loader. The best setup (apparently) is to have GRUB as the boot loader and have Windows as one of the boot options.

I see you don't want a boot loader, but you can set the loader to default to windows if you like, and you can make the selection time as little as one second, I think. I don't see much alternative for you unless you want to boot from floppies.

There is a third option available. Go ahead and let the windows boot loader do its thing so the PC automatically boots into windows. Install GRUB on a floppy disk with the boot options you want. I have one PC that I do that with. The rest of the family boots the PC and it goes directly into windows. I pop in the floppy and boot - this gives me a GRUB menu where I can default into Windows after 10 seconds (in case I forget to remove the floppy when I'm done) or take the option to boot into FC3.

The thing to remember on this is - if you install a new kernel you have to manually add it to the grub.conf file on the floppy disk.

BAV