hi
i have been stalling to write a question here cuz i keep searching and searching on google to solve all my problems. but i am now stumped.
i have been at this windows/linux installation for 50 hours and i am quite frankly very tired.
i will cut it all short and down to the point and i am hoping someone will help me out as i am quite new to linux

Hdd and Partition Specs:
80 gb hard drive
10 gb Windows NTFS
10 gb NTFS
2 gb linux swap
12 gb ext3 (/)
rest is unpartitioned.

OS:
Windows XP Pro w/SP1a
Mandrake Linux 10
(i installed Fedora Core 2 but it freezes when i try to use sound so i am gonna stick with Mandrake)

bootloader:
GRUB

Steps: (the last time i tried to install that is)
Installed windows first
installed mandrake
[when i installed mandrake it did not tell me where do i want to install the bootloader as it did the first time i tried to install it (which i have now done several times)]

Error: (when i reboot and select Windows as my option,)
Booting 'windows'
root (hd0,0)
Filysystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
chainloader +1
_ (blinking cursor)
and the cursor just remains there then

I dont know what to do. please, can someone help. i really want to use linux and windows as I want to write some plugins for GAIM and I want to program under a Linux env.
Thank you.
btw, in my previous installation attempts I have used the dd command to clean up the MBR so that I could revert back to Windows. I dont know if that played a role in anything thats happening. If so, how do i fix it?
Mandrake loads though, just so u know. Mandrake even sees my windows partitions in the /mnt/windows_c folder.

when you installed linux did you tell it to autopartition? and if so did you choose the "remove all linux partition" option?

Darren

i chose custom partitioning and created the above mentioned partitions
upon doing so it said writing to partition table now.

im not sure if that will overwrite the boot loader tho (ie ask where you want it) can anyone else conferm that you should use auto partition if you want it to ask

hmm. interesting.. i think that time i did not choose custom partitioning.. hmmm cant remember. i have reinstalled the OSs sooooo many times in the past 2 days i cant remember which was what.

so where should i save the bootloader?
into the MBR?
or first bytes of the root partition (which hasnt succeeded in my attempts so far)