I am currently running Windows XP and I want to change to a dual boot with linux(Red Hat 9). I have been having so much trouble with Windows and I think the easiest thing to fix it is to re-install (this has worked in the past). So, here is my question: Should I install linux then re-install Windows (I don't know if this will work out very well), or re-install Windows then install Red linux. I guess the better question is: if i install linux and create a partition for windows can and will windows install to that partition with no problem? or will it try to remove partitions and delete linux

i am running triple boot with fedora core mandrake and xp I'm only a newbie but i think you should install windows first yes you could install xp on a partition created during linux installation but while i was installing xp i got a massage saying xp needed to mark the linux partition as inactive to complete installing which robbed me of the option to boot either OS. It took me straight to windows after installation reboot i couldnt figure out a way to fix. i installed mandrake and fedora again without any more problems

Are you doing a complete fresh install for both Linux and XP or just one. I belive the easist way is to do fresh re-install of everything, where you install XP first. Tell XP to only partition part of the hard drive and complete that install. Then load the Linux OS afterwords, and it will use the rest of the disk space and Windows won't complain.

If you install Windows after installing linux, it would remove the bootloader therefore leading you straight to windows.

I have never installed Linux before and I thought installing windows after linux wouldn’t work and that seems to be the consensus here. Can i get windows to partition the hard drive as it installs itself? so i wont have to add a partition when i install linux

I just used fdisk (from any type of boot disk - like Win98) to delete all the current partitions on the disk and partition a small chunk (8GB) of my hard drive (120GB) for Windows and left the rest "unallocated". I then installed Windows to that one and only partition, and then installed Red Hat 9 and used the Anaconda Disk Druid during the installation to partition the rest of the free space for Linux mount points and the swap file. That leaves the two to co-exist peacefully. FYI, I chose to mount /boot to the first part of the unallocated space to obtain a cylinder on the hard drive below 1024 to allow it to boot without any problems. Worked pretty good.

(all this was learned after reading many posts and botching my whole system a couple of times. )

if you install win after linux you will get your boot loader(grub, lilo) overriden. However, you can always boot from your rescue disk, and restore grub, without the need to reinstall linux.

~# grub-install
~# grub-update

Fixed