Ok i have installed Linux Red Hat 9 on one 40gb Hd and Windows XP pro on another 40gb hard drive. I also have a 120gb hd that i use strictly for multi-media stuff. Currently the way my computer is configured is the Windows Xp pro hd is the master and the 120gb is the slave. I also have a dvd and cdrw-rom connected to my computer so all my IDE slots are taken. I thought maybe if i disconnect the dvd rom which i hardly use and plug the linux drive on that IDE chain I could have a dual boot but no such luck. I was wondering if there is a way to have dual boot and still have my cd-rw and my 120gb hd and my windows drive... Ne suggestions?

Your 120gb hd probably came with an ide card. This would allow you to add 4 hard drives if you wanted to (and had room in the pc).

What steps did you take to try to get the third hard drive to boot?

There should not be any reason why it does not work...

First of all, i assume you set the jumpers correctly?

Am I right that both installations of Linux and XP had been made when the drive was master on the first ide channel (hda)?

What you have to do now are two things. First of all, your Linux has to know, that it will be intalled on hdc (or hdd, depending on wheter it will be master or slave...)
Then you have to install a boot manager such as lilo (redhat uses grub, right? )
and install it on that drive that the computers bios points to. My intension would be to install it on the linux drive, so you have a untouched win$ installation, but with xp, there shouldn't be such problems anymore...

Since I can't give you step by step instructions for doing this manualy, my post is not that constructive at the moment, i know, but it should make your situation clearer, so others could more easily help, or you could have hints for googling...
My way at that moment would be to newly install linux with that setup... then anything would be fine... but this is maybe not best solution...

Did you try to set the bios pointing to hdc? (Maybe in the bios setup named IDE-2)
Did Linux boot that way?

hope beeing a little help
regards
ajk

There are basically 3 solutions:
1. Grub in your MBR (ie in front of winxp partition) ->boots linux natively or gives control to winxp bootloader, probably the best solution
2. winxp bootloader in MBR + lilo in 3rd disk; you will need to configure your xp bootloader to chainload disk3
3. a Grub boot floppy, if you don't want to touch your MBR. This can be a good recovery tool, too: it can boot almost any os on any computer.
All these have no known problems, so the choice is up to you.
Don't make a lilo boot disk, since it will not boot if you change kernel and forget to update.

Or simply rerun the grub or lilo installer and it will add windows xp to the boot options for it. Then change your hard disk that you boot to to your linux native drive. you can then modify your default OS in linux in the "Boot-loader" option in your menu.

ok i have just installed linux the other day and i could format it and re-install it if need be but im kind of confused on ways of getting a dual boot. To clarify some things... i) Both OS were installed as masters i just switched the IDE cables ii) I dont have a IDE card.

I also have no clue how to run GRUB or LILO. First what are they? What OS do i install thim in... and if i install it what setup should i have on the hds... Which one is master and slave... Should i just plug my the IDE cable for my DVd-rom into my 120gb hd and have the 2 40s on the same chain? I also don't know how to install GRUB in front of a partition... Do u mean format the drive install Grub then install the OS. I can't do that with windows... Formatting my windows drive is out of the question. There isn't enough room to back everything up on that drive. Sugestions?

If you have sufficient space on the 120GB drive you could resize to create some free space (unallocated) and install RH on it. Install grub to the MBR. Connect it as IDE 1st controller slave.

If you want all three drive then you either need to purchase a PCI IDE controller or an IDE-USB adapter.

Blackout I am confused as you are...
You should be able to boot from the linux harddrive that is on the second ide chain.

first you need to learn if your hd is refered to as hdc (master on seconf ide cable) or hdd (slave on second ide cable). Also make sure you have the correct jumper settings on the drive ie is set to master or slave or cable select depending on your setup. My guess is that your dvd-rom was your slave on the second ide cable. So try setting the drive jumpers to slave first.

Next step a bootloader, examples include, grub, lilo, windows bootloader, bootloaders reside in a special partition of harddrives. These partitions are called boot records, when someone refers to MBR they refer to the master boot record, the master boot record resides on the master hard drive on the first ide channel, in this case your winxp HD. when the computer boots up the bios checks the mbr, and in the case of winxp, winxp's bootloader just loads windows. To make your machine dual boot, you must.

1) alter the winxp bootloader to chain load the appropriate linux hd, however, I have never done this though I do know you can alter the bootloader option by opening the my computer window, then selecting view system information from the systems task s menu on the left hand side. Next select the advanced tab, and then select the settings button in startup and recovery. at the top you wil see system startup, and below it a drop down box. right now the only OS windows is aware of is XP you will need to select the edit button and alter the options in that file to get it to boot linux, I do not know how to do this so you will need to do some research to find out.

2) Second option, if you have a boot disk to load linux, or you have another rescue disk to boot into the linux hard disk, or you don't mind reinstalling linux now that the linux HD is in this computer, You can install a linux boot manager. the two widely available boot managers are. Lilo, and grub. I use Lilo. Then their is also grub, which some tell me is a better boot loader. whichever one you choose, it's option files will need to be setup, and then the the program run, when the program is run, it will replace the mbr and then when the computer boots you will get an option of which os to boot, and I know with lilo, and I imagine grub as well you can have a defualt OS boot, like you start the computer, go get some coffee and instead of coming back to an option screen which os do you want, it will all ready load the defualt os. many installer programs give you the option to install one or both of these loaders, and will usually configure them for you, including the configuration portion needed to boot to windows. otherwise you will need to install the manager, then do some research and alter the config files as needed.

good luck

ok i understand kinda of what ure saying scheidel21. I know how to set the jumpers on my drives im just not sure if the linux drive has to be on master on the second IDE chain or if it has to be on the IDE chain that my windows XP drive is on and set to either slave or master. I know that if the drive is set to slave the xp drive is then set to master. Which would i do? If someone could give me step by step instructions on what i should do id appreciate it. thanks.

Ok, here's what I'd do in your situation.[list=1][*]Configure Linux drive to be Secondary Master.[*]Configure CDRW to secondary slave[*]Leave XP as primary master[*]Leave 120GB as primary slave[*]Make sure XP is installed and can read the 120GB drive and CDRW ok. It can't read the Linux drive so that's ok.[*]Install Linux onto the HDC (Secondary master). During the install it should ask you where you want the bootloader. Just select MBR of HDA (XP drive).[*]Linux will detect XP and add relevant entry in LILO/GRUB.[*]Reboot and enjoy [/list=1] This is assuming that you can live without a DVD drive. If you can't, consider a DVD/CDRW combo drive (they're getting pretty cheap nowdays).

Another thing I would do is format the 120GB drive as FAT32 so Linux can write to it. It saves headaches for when you want to transfer files between XP and Linux.

HTH
Baldrick

Alright man that made a lot of sense. I'll get back to you guys tonight with the final result. Thanks