I'm new to Linux and I downloaded the .iso images to install on a new pc. I have 2 SATA hd's, one has XP pro and the other hd is free. How do I install FC3 from the .iso? My desktop is a new Dell XPS, 1gig ram, 2-80gig SATA hd's with the 925XE Express chipset.

The second hd has 2 partitions.....30gig FAT32 and the rest is ntfs

.iso are image files. you will need to burn this to a cd or dvd depending on which file(s) you downloaded.

These files need to be burned to a cd as image. (nero is recommended because that is what i use). After the files have been burned re-boot with cd#1 and it will bring up its boot menu. If this is your first time installing i would install in graphical mode which you can enter by hitting the enter key. After that it is standard click and point. Make sure you choose the drive that does not have the xp installed on unless you want to get rid of xp.

gl

Did you burn the iso's to CD yet? Alcohol 120% does this well, at least it worked well for me under XP, and 30-day demo is free. After they're burned, boot from the first CD and see if Fedora can find the sata drives.
However, assuming XP is on drive one, you will also need to need to set up partitions (other than fat/ntfs) on the second drive during the install process to house Fedora (ext2/3 fs); although Fedora can safely read/write fat32 partitions (ntfs will be read-only), Fedora will want ext2/3 as the native file system for the / and /boot paritions. /home can be fat32, and thus you'll be able to r/w this partition from XP.

I used Sonic RecordNow to burn the .iso to cd but I didn't see an option to burn as image. When I rebooted and used the first disk, it seemed like it was going to start the install but XP started as usual. I do have another set of cd's that I used a few days ago to instal FC3 but every time I got to the part of the install where it asks if I want to Manually or Automatically partition the hd, I would choose either one and the install would exit and say that I have no hard drives or that I need drivers installed for my hard drives. thanks for your help

if you used sonic, i think there is a tab for backups or something like that that is what you want if you just burned the iso file, then that is what you have a cd with and iso file on it

Yes, I see it on the Backup tab but its not available with my version, I'll have to upgrade to burn the iso correctly then.....thanks