I tried to install FC5 and trashed my system's boot. I've fixed it, but want to avoid repeating the problem.
System is Soyo K7V mobo (VIA chipset) w/ single IDE HD w/ 4 pri partitions, and 2 identical PATA hard drives set up as a mirrored (RAID 1) array using the mobo's built-in RAID driver. The first parition of drive 0 is 40GB formatted FAT32 and unused (M

. 2nd partition is 110GB NTFS with old unused/unusable WinXP OS and currently used data (C

. 3rd partition is only 110MB (leftover from earlier manipulations) and is formatted with ext3 and is unused (hidden - no drive letter). 4th partition is 7GB NTFS swap files (E

. Drive 1 is a single partition; RAID array is 80GB NTFS with current WinXP OS and some data. I also have various USB stuff (memsticks, flash drives, vid cam...) filling out the drive letters to L:. The M: drive is the last assigned drive (All drive letters are by WinXP, obviously!) In the process of recovering from the crash I installed Partition Magic's Boot Magic system loader - a windows equivalent to GRUB. It resides on drive M:. Evolutionarily speaking, my system disproves Intelligent Design. Anyhoo...
I want to install FC5 so it dual boots with XP via Grub. I need an expert to offer some advice on how best to have GRUB replace Boot Magic, convert the M: drive to Linux ext3, install Linux on the M: drive, and still boot/run! Allowing Linux to do it automagically the first time didn't work so well... I am moderately familiar w/ Linux (have installed/used RH 3, RH 5, Fedora 3) but remain frustrated with its obtuse (to me) file structure, and have a hard time understanding how to do many tasks if they're not explained in simple terms. I can use Partition Magic if necessary to move/resize/change partitions before installing, except that I want to keep the current WinXP where it is (RAID drive D

Thanks much in advance for any help; my dog thanks you too. (He needs to frighten some squirrels and I'm stuck in front of the damn computer...)