Hi guys,

I'm a Linux newbie, so don't throw things at me.

Problem: I've got two SATA disks (Maxtors 80Gb and 200Gb) and XP as a first system. On the second disc I had 70G of unpartitioned space. So when I installed FC6 (using FC-6-i386-DVD.iso) I selected 'Use free space on selected drives and create default layout' option. Disk was formatted and installation proceeded smoothly. During the installation questions I accepted the default option for GRUB creation on /dev/sda and selected Fedora Core as a default OS. GRUB was installed and system asked for the reboot. But after reboot there is no GRUB loader options (no GRUB messages or any messages at all). XP was started as usual.
I tried installation again now selected 'Upgrade an existing system' option. Previously installed FC6 was found, but setup couldn't find the GRUB loader in MBR. So I selected 'Create new boot loader configuration' option. Installation finished, no error, reboot - again XP.

What I did wrong ???

Thanks in advance

You need to have a /boot partition on the first disk with XP on it. If you can resize the main disk making sure you have at least 200MB for a /boot partition. This has to be in the first 2GB. When you install FC6 you can do the auto and it should see the free memory on the first disk and install the boot partition here.

You'll probably find that if you swap the disks round that only FC6 will boot.

The reason for doing this is that the MBR is on the first disk and can only boot things withing the first 2GB boot boundary... if my memory serves me correctly!

If the auto partitioner doesn't work you'll have to do it manually... I probably can dig out an old thread if that's the case.

Have a look at this post: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=495743

Note that after he does this he then sets up the Windows boot loader to replace grub which you may or may not want if grub works properly (it should, mine does).