Yes.Personally I always partition first, even before a Linux install, but if you want FC5 to use LVM for example you might be best to not do anything with the free space.

The conf file is /boot/grub/menu.lst .

To clarify whether you even still have a windows partition, run 'fdisk -l /dev/hda' as su/root.

thanks to all the posters on this thread. your help was much appreciated. what i done was download GParted and booted from it.

1. deleted all partitions
2. created one NTFS partition for WinXP Home (40GB) at the start of the drive
3. left the rest unallocated
4. installed windows on 40GB NTFS partition
5. inserted FC5 dvd
6. selected install default partition setup on remaining disk space
7. installer done the rest

i did notice that it is installed on something like Vol0001 or something like that???
does this mean it is not truly dual-booting? i can get into FC5 and WinXP home now though

:-)

Good times!

That's Logical Volume Manager (LVM - LVM2 actually). Allows your data to "grow" across new partitions/disks - comes with it's own set of problems of course.
tldp.org has a howto you might like to look at.You are truly dual-booting. However each system will likely be isolated - Redhat/Fedora have never shipped NTFS support as part of the package, and XP will not be aware of LVM.