Hi I'm a linux newbie trying to set up a dual boot system using redhat with my existing windows xp system as a secondary OS for practice and testing at home.

my problem is I can't get grub to load the boot screen after I installed red hat 8.0. my system used to run XP exclusively on a single 20 Gb hard drive partitioned into 2 10 Gb partitions (1 for the system and the other for data). I recently bought an additional 20 Gb drive and partitioned 10 Gb and formatted it (FAT32) as a shared drive and thought of installing linux into the remaining unpartitioned space.

I partitioned and installed using Red Hat 8.0 and encountered no errors but when the system rebooted after the installation it booted straight into Win XP. I wasn't able to create a boot diskette because my floppy drive is buggy and I mostly use my CD and CD-R for backups and transfers.

I'm guessing my installation was ok because when I tried booting using the redhat CDs and going into rescue mode and accessing my installed folders it worked.

I've read quite a few articles already giving conflicting advice that during installation i should choose to install grub into the mbr or boot/. I've already done the installation twice just to test both cases but it still doesn't seem to work. help!

This seems to be an issue of Grub 0.92 which come with RH 8.0 --- I don't know if it's have been fixed ---
Maybe the best solution is: reinstall RH selecting LILO as boot loader.

I see is there any way to switch to lilo as bootloader
without having to reinstall the entire thing?

Pretty simple, actually (if you can start Linux). Log on as root and configure /etc/lilo.conf (start with the contents of /etc/lilo.conf.anaconda). Then, in a terminal window, type:

lilo

No doubt, simpler than mine

i'm currently limited to booting linux thru my cd-rom (floppy's busted) in rescue mode. It doesn't really prompt me for a username or password when I start up. Can I just cd (change directory) to the installed linux drives and su into root this way?
I can't think of any other way of getting there otherwise.

also how do i go about configuring /etc/lilo.conf? Do I have to change stuff in the file thru a text editor or can i just run lilo from command line and take it from there

btw thanx for putting up with my questions

In rescue mode go to the console prompt, cd /etc
Then cp lilo.conf.anaconda lilo.conf
if you didn't upgrade the supplied kernel, don't need to edit lilo.conf
else vi lilo.conf, adjusting kernel and initrd file names (at /boot)
finally, run "lilo", "sync", and reboot.
Now Lilo is the boot loader.

i tried your advice but i also cant get lilo to work..
anyways this might sound funny but i've got a new problem.
i tried reinstalling linux (for the last time hopefully) selecting grub as the bootloader and surprise, surprise, it works now! i'm now able to boot into red hat and do all the stuff i want to do there BUT... now my new problem is everytime i try selecting windows xp from the grub loader my machine just reboots!! now i can't get to my windows system where all my files are. i've read somewhere that you can clear the mbr of grub by typing fdisk /mbr at command line but i dont really want to end up unable to get into linux again. and i'm not sure i want to go thru the hassle of doing everything from scratch just to try getting it working again. can anyone suggest a workaround? i'm able to access grub.conf from linux and my windows xp boot area looks something like this:

Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

any suggestion would help greatly here. i'm hoping i can get this fixed before the week end or else i might have to end up removing grub AND linux for good just to get windows working

I'm on the same, my Windoze partition (which I use marginally) is starting from BIOS (modifying the boot device every time I want to start it). Linux loads OK. My boot loader is Lilo... before that was Grub but after trying ALL I gave up.

I'll try to config Lilo... when have the time.

Finally is dual-booting properly !!!! it was simple... Windows just wants to be in the first drive, using the "map-drive" option a soft-swapping can be performed.

This is my /etc/lilo.conf :

prompt
timeout=15
default=linux
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18-19.8.0
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.18-19.8.0.img
read-only
append="hdd=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

other=/dev/hdb1
label=DOS
table=/dev/hdb
loader = /boot/chain.b
map-drive = 0x80
to = 0x81
map-drive = 0x81
to = 0x80

This works for a system with Linux on the first ide hd and Windows on secondary hd.

HTH

I played around with the settings ( rootnoverify (hd0,0) )in my grub.conf file and (finally!) got windows to boot properly! apparently, grub failed to detect the location of win xp on my hard drive properly so it kept trying to boot from a non-bootable partition. this might be the cause of the constant restart when i select it from the boot menu.

anyway thanks finidi and deadbug for helping me along in my (awkward :P) first steps in trying to get linux running in my system. next i'll probably be asking about device detection and other stuff but that would merit another thread. thanks again =)

I'm glad too