I have a desktop box running XP

on a second internal hard drive i downloaded Fedora 12, (now 13)

on start up the box always boots into Fedora 13, and I have no way of booting into windows.

during the start up process i am given the option to enter into grub, but it only gives me 3 seconds to hit any key, and when i do hit a key it doesn't seem to register and we always boot into fedora.

What I would like to do is to automatically go to a grub screen and have the option of which to choose direct from start up.

All the grub tutorials I have found all seem to be slightly beyond my starting point of linux knowledge. is there a real simple guide or way to do this?

thanks in advance

Please provide the content of the grub configuration file. The file is /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/grub.conf

As root, edit the file /boot/grub/grub.conf. There's a line that says:
(the actually number may differ). The number is the numbr of seconds for which your grub menu will appear. Just change it to something larger; I've got mine set to 65.

yes I will post the contents here, my problem is how do i open that file.

if through the terminal, how do i cut and paste that?

thanks

Highlight the text

Press ctrl+c to copy
press Ctrl+v to paste

work in both Linux and MS Winodws GUI

from the terminal run gedit as root
you need to be root to edit the grub.conf file

also READ the fedora docs .this is a very well known problem and IS VERY WELL DOCUMENTED
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/index.html

sorry for the delay!

here is the boot/grub/menu.lst file

# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root
# initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=50
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

and the /etc/grub.conf file
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd1,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root
# initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=0
timeout=50
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.5-124.fc13.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.5-112.fc13.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_penguin-lv_root noiswmd LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYBOARDTYPE=pc KEYTABLE=uk rhgb quiet
initrd /initramfs-2.6.33.4-95.fc13.i686.img
title Other
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

thanks for any help

Hi john
the documents are quite comprehensive but i couldn't find anything which would help with my problem?
could you point me to the right section of the documents as I was struggling to find an answer which was basic enough for me to understand?

thanks for the help.

Hi,

you might want to put # into hiddenmenu to disable it

#hiddenmenu

and set default=0 to default=3 to boot directly to winxp

cmiiw