I want to use windowsxp's boot loader and NOT the grub boot loader, because if redhat goes bye bye, so does windows with the grub loader.

I also would like to make runlevel 3 as my default which i believe i change in my init.d folder config files (i have to read my college notes again ).

Can someone give me a basic rundown, i have administration experience with redhat 9 so i am familiar with the runlevels and all that crap.

I just want windows to manage the bootloading and not linux. From there im good.

thanks in advance.

in rh/fedora you do this by altering /etc/inittab
place 3 instead of 5
I don't know if you can do that. Anyway this is a windows question not a linux one.
You may use the boot loader of patition magic (but not all versions of patition magic do have the loader).
If you have problems with grub use lilo.
"lilo -u" will uninstall the loader in case you don't need it any more.
There is also a command in windows rescue console "fixmbr" to overwright the masterbootsection.
Hope it helps...

I boot up Linux on my old computer with Windows 2000 that way although I do it differently on my newer computer. Very few Linux users do it that way, but it works fine. It involves editing the Windows boot.ini file so that it will offer the option to boot Linux. The Windows boot loader will not directly boot up Linux but, it can be configured so that when Linux is selected it can call up the Linux LILO or GRUB boot loader which will then boot up Linux. Lets see if I can remember correctly how to do that. I have done it with Windows 2000 so what I describe would most likely also work with Windows XP. I see the instructions are here on page 424-426 of the Linux+ Guide to Linux Certification book.

I assume you probably have not yet installed Linux. When you install Linux, you would not want want to choose the option to install GRUB or LILO to the Master Boot Record(MBR). The MBR is at the beginning of your hard drive and is not part of any partition. You want to let Windows keep what it has on the MBR and instead install LILO or GRUB to the 1st sector of the boot partiton. When you install Linux you can choose to use either the LILO or the GRUB bootloader, either choice would be ok. Some distros give you a choice of either boot loader and some offer just one or the other. So go ahead and install Linux but when you install either LILO or GRUB be sure to choose to have it installed to the 1st sector of the boot partition. Most Linux distros give you that choice although a few don't. Then as Linux is being installed be sure to have the installation program create a boot floppy because it will be needed temporatily. Do you have a floppy drive?

After Linux has been installed you will initially only be able to boot Linux up from a floppy disk not from the hard drive. We can change that later. The BIOS on your computer may or may not yet be set up to boot from a floppy disk. When you insert the boot flopppy disk and reboot the computer hopefully it will boot from the floppy disk not from the hard drive. If that does not happen then you will need to temporarily change a setting in the BIOS setup program of your computer to boot from a floppy drive first insead of from the CD. That is easy to do but, do you know how to do that?

So anyway boot up into Linux from the floppy disk and then while logged in as root you need to create a bootable image file of LILO or GRUB. Do you know where your main Linux partiton is? If not, then the "mount" command would tell you. I will assume that you did not create a seperate partition for "/boot" and that "/boot" is a directory that is inside your main partition for "/". Then if for instance, you installed Linux on hda2 you would do this. You would need to create an image of the 1st sector of the boot partition by typing this:

dd if=/dev/hda2 bs=512 count=1 of=linboot.bin

The above command will create a file named linboot.bin (or whatever you called it). You then need to copy that to a floppy disk or a CD or a ZIP disk or something temporarily and after that reboot into Windows. After rebooting into Windows you need to copy the linboot.bin file to C:\ and then edit your Windows boot.ini file with notepad. I will explain those details in a moment I you would like.

hell carry on this is what i was looking for

So anyway, continuing on what I was saying above; you would have now rebooted into Windows XP and logged in as the administrator (if you had been using the option of each user logging in seperately). Next, copy linboot.bin (or whatever you called it) onto C:\. Then use notepad to open the boot.ini file that is a hidden file on C:\. If you try to browse for boot.ini with notepad it it will not list the file as being there because it is hidden but when you type boot.ini in it will actually find it and open it up for editing for you. Oddly enough Windows will let notpad edit that file but not some other text editors for some reason. So if I remember correctly you add a line like this to the end of your boot.ini file:

C:\linboot.bin="Linux"

That would tell the NTLOADER bootloader for Windows the path to the linboot.bin file and that we should list that option as Linux in the menu that pops up when Windows first starts up. By the was just as a safety precation you might want to create a Windows XP boot disk if you know how to do that (not that I actually bothered with any precautions such as that). At the moment I can not remember how to do that but, it might be a good safety precaution. So anyway, I have done this with Windows 2000 on my older computer, it would probably work with Windows XP but definately not with Windows 95, 94 or ME. I hope it also works for Windows XP.

Below is what the boot.ini file looks like on my old computer. My Windows 2000 boot.ini file is slightly unusual in that Windows is not on the first partition on the first hard drive (netither is Linux by the way). The only change that I made to boot.ini was to add the last line. There were then two operating systems to choose from. I did not mention how to mount a floppy disk under Linux and copy the linboot.bin file to the floppy disk. Almost any of us could tell you how to do that. As I mentioned earlier, very few Linux users do it that way but it works fine. It is not quite as easy as just letting the Linux installation program install everything for you and just going with most of the default choices. But, this method is also fairly easy to set up. Here is my Windows 2000 boot.ini file:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect


C:\linboot.bin="Linux"

thx dude
but when i try (with lilo install on hda6) i just get 'L' when i boot up from the linux option in nt loader :S

thanks dude, that about covers it.