I installed RedHat 8.0 on my laptop that currently has Win2k installed. I have a 40GB hard drive that I used PartitionMagic to partition as follows:

5GB Win2k (FAT32)
100MB Linux /boot (ext3)
27GB Windows Programs (FAT32)
7.5GB Linux / (ext3)
1GB Linux (swap)

These partitions were formatted in PartitionMagic prior to installing RedHat.

The install for RedHat went fine, and when prompted for a boot loader, I chose to not have one, but just to create a floppy boot disk. When the install finished and I rebooted with the floppy in the drive, all I get is "Boot Failed". If I remove the floppy and boot from hard drive, I boot into Win2k fine.

Is it a problem that I formatted the partitions with PartitionMagic and therefore skipped the formatting during the install of Redhat?

Any suggestions?

Once happened to me and had to boot from cd
there i had the cchance to create a boot disk before formatting, so i created de floopy and exited installation.....

and 1 gb of swap is probably too much... if you are planning to use it a a desktop computer, and unless you have nearly 500 mb is not worth it

And 100 megs for /boot is too much. I usually make mine close to 16 megs and never have any problems.

See if you can't bootup in rescue mode using the cd and from there you could try to install a bootloader which might make the process much smoother.

Try installing LiLO, Windows' bot loader never managed correctly other OS. I think it is a little too much swap and definetley too much /boot... I have 30MB and it's half empty (and I keep two versions of my kernel there.) As for Swap....it ussualy is the double of RAM memory...

I initially had my /boot set at 70mb, but the installer indicated that atleast 75mb is suggested. For Redhat 7.3 I only used 40mb for /boot.

I'll try some of the load options that were recommended and post my results.

I still wasn't sure if the issue could be that PartitionMagic formatted the partitions instead of using Redhat to format the partitions??

It shouldn't since the problem was at your boot disk. Try downloading www.toms.net/rb it is not a boot disk, it is a root. from there you can install LiLo. You canalso do that from the rescue CD (the install in redhat and mandrake)

I suggest making the boot partition smaller to about 16MB like trickykid suggested. Also you should reduce the swap size a bit.

Ive used partiton magic before as well to create those partitions and off memory it has complained before so I usually let linux create them for me

Oh and why can't u boot linux via Lilo. Ive done it before and Win2K has booted fine.

Although, if u didn't want lilo taking over and u wanted to use the NT loader instead thats possible as well.

All you have to do to Use NT's Loader to boot Linux is:

1.) boot linux off the RedHat CD in Rescue mode
2.) change root to your Redhat installation
(which in Redhat's Rescue mode usually is just the following command: chroot /mnt/sysimage)

3.) Then you need to install lilo but to your installation's partition by typing
/sbin/lilo -b /dev/hda(x) x=the partition u installed redhat onto

4. Then you need to grab the boot sector so that Win2K can boot it. This is done by typing:

dd if=/dev/hda(x) of=bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1
(x=the partition u installed redhat onto)

5.) now simply copy that file to a floppy disk
either via:

mcopy bootsect.lnx a:

or

mkdir /mnt/floppy (Possible necessary in Redhat Rescue Mode)
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
cp bootsect.lnx /mnt/floppy
umount /mnt/floppy

6.) Once on floppy, Take out the floppy and reboot in Windows 2000

Once in open a dos prompt box
and type the following:
c:
cd \
attrib boot.ini -r -h -s
edit boot.ini

7.) once in Ms Dos editor add the following to the bottom of it:

c:\bootsect.lnx="Redhat Linux 7.3"
then click on the file menu and click save
then click on the file menu and click exit

8.) Now Simply copy the file bootsect.lnx from the floppy disk to the c:\ folder

That should do it

Oh Yeah you can also do that windows part without using dos

Sorry that the reply is so big
oh well hope that helps

Thanks for all the help, I finally got it working.

Here's the breakdown:
I resized all the partitions as suggested and reinstalled RedHat. I created a boot floppy and when I rebooted I got the same error "Boot Failed". I guess I should have indicated that I was booting from an USB floppy. I took lancedamad's's suggesstion and booted to rescue mode and followed your directions. However, since this is a USB device I had to mount with /dev/sda instead of /dev/fd0. Once I did this, I copied it to floppy and edited my boot.ini. Now I can use NT's boot loader to dual boot between Win2k and Linux.

Thanks again for everyone's help. You make trying Linux ALOT easier!!!