help!!!dual boot Redhat 9 and Windows XP
 

I had windows XP installed first then I installed Redhat 9 after that. During installation of Redhat 9, I chose Lilo as boot loader and put it in the MBR. However, when I restart my computer, it just boot straight into XP without asking me anything. I can only boot Linux using floppy. It seems to me that the boot loader of windows is still working, but I am not sure. How do I figure out which boot loader is doing the job?
Thanks for any help.

you could try going into the BIoS

dual booting xp and linux
 

i had the same trouble and figured out that i must set it to boot to dos and not linux during the install

Boot into linux with your bootdisk (good thing you made one). Then, double check which disk/partition windows and linux are on. To do this run "fdisk /dev/hda" (you have to be root) and press p (to print the partition table). Then edit your /etc/lilo.conf file (you also have to be root to write to this file) and make sure the root=<blah> statement points to the linux partition. In my case it is: "root=/dev/hda1". Then check (should be down the bottom) the other=<blah> statement to make sure it points to you windows partition. In my case this looks like:

other=/dev/hda4
label="WinXP"

In both cases, where I have /dev/hdxx you put in the partitions you found out using fdisk. Then save your file and exit. Then, run "lilo" (this is what writes the new config to the MBR). The above is based on the assumption that the rest of the lilo.conf file is OK. I can't post attachments so I can't show you my lilo.conf. Just check if the above works. If not, we'll take it from there.

you can put a line

'prompt' (without the single quotes)
'delay=60' (seconds)

in lilo.conf

it should cause 'LILO boot:' to be shown each time u start the PC. you can then press Tab to see which partition to boot to ...

Help: Dual Boot Redhat 9 and WIndows XP
 

I'm also having issues dual booting windows XP and Redhat 9 using LILO. Here is how the system is configured

2 Physical Hard Drives

HD1: (/dev/hde)
30GB NTFS (hde1)
HD2: (/dev/hdf)
15GB NTFS (hdf1)
2GB FAT32 (hdf2)
102MB ext3 (hdf3) (linux boot partition i believe)
13GB Extended (hdf4)

XP was installed first. When I installed Redhat, I elected to use LILO and chose to install LILO on the MBR.

When I boot up the machine, it boots directly into Windows XP. There is no option to select Linux, nor do I see any indication that LILO is running at all.

I can get into Linux from the boot disk, and when I execute the command 'lilo' I get the following error:

Warning: device 0x2143 exceeds 1024 cylinder limit
Fatal: sector 33520451 too large for linear mode (try 'lba32' instead)

Here is what my lilo.conf file looks like:
prompt
delay=10
timeout=50
default=WindowsXP
boot=/dev/hde
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
message=/boot/message
linear

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-19.9
label=linux
initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.20-19.9.img
read-only
append="hda=ide-scsi root=LABEL=/"

other=/dev/hde1
optional
label=WindowsXP

Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Add the line "lba32" to the top of your lilo.conf file. You may also want to add the line "root=dev/hdf4" (without the quotes) to the file as well.

I'd recommend to switch to grub! I have had a lot of good experience with it, including good experience fixing errors when things went wrong. It is even possible to make a grub boot disk.

Thanks - the lba32 command fixed it. Also - i had to change the "boot" variable in lilo.conf to /dev/hdf3. Don't know why it got initialized improperly. Thanks again.