I have quite a few questions...

I tried googling this stuff and I am just confused :|
I have a laptop that i am going to reformat... I know that if i install win xp first then install fC3, i think i have the idea on how to dual boot it... which (correct me if im wrong)

Also i am using only ONE hard drive.

I'd install XP, partition it into two hard drives
then install FC3 and then just make sure it installs on hdb and uncheck hda (which is where xp would be installed)

I read up on some sites and i can't link it to you b/c i have no posted 5 threads yet :\ yes im a n00b

But what i do not get is, how come I cannot find anything on installing XP onto FC3... I mean i read a bunch of stuff about grub and lilo

But all that confuses me... what makes grub different from lilo? I notice i have a lilo config but I believe my pc is using grub b/c I had it load up when i boot up the machine and on the top it says GRUB. What if i wanted to use lilo how would i go about that?

I mean don't get me wrong, I know how to install XP and install FC3 independently, but after installing FC3 how do i go and install XP and then
edit grub (Which i THINK i know how to do but just incase tell me)
Thanks for your help in advance.

hdb will be the second drive not the second partition. Just create 1 partition for XP and leave the rest as free space. Install XP on to that partition and then your linux distribution onto the free space.

if you're using 1 hdd, then it should label thing as /dev/hda1, /dev/hda2 etc etc - you'd only normally see /dev/hdb if you have more than one hard drive or if you have a burner/writer/cdrom or something connected to the second IDE channel.

Grub and lilo are just different bootloader apps. Yes they work in slightly different ways, the files are different, but they effectively do the same thing. I suspect that as you mention fedora, then it's probably going to want too use grub as default (along with gnome for the desktop environment/window manager).

It's often just easier, from the new user standpoint, to have the XP first. Get it working OK. Then boot the fedora install disc and tell it to install to the second partition. It may want to do stuff like make a swap partition (normally recommended). It might also struggle to install, because laptops tend to be a little more temperamental i.e. the hardware is more specialised.

Normally, when you install a linux distro after XP (or any other windows for that matter), the linux distro would overwrite the windows version of the MBR (major boot record). Which is OK. You want the bootloader to be able to see all installed OS's, so it's normally gonna go in the first section of the first harddrive.

Doing it the other way round, will have the windows install overwriting the MBR with the windows version. Hence you'd probably not be able to boot the linux without some alternative method - boot floppy or something similar. Some distros (e.g. Mandriva) have rescue facilities that allow you to boot the install disc and then, following a "rescue" procedure, re-install the bootloader (windows if the linux one has over written it, or linux if the windows one has done the over writing - don't know about fedora).

regards

John

ok cool thanks alot :] how would i create a partition on an already installed FC3?
how come when the pc boots up and i put XP disc in there, it doesn't say "to boot off cd press a key" like it would if XP was my default OS?

So i guess im asking how would i install XP after an already installed and partitioned FC3

You can use cfdisk or fdisk to modify your partition table but you will need some free space first. If you didn't leave any unpartitioned space then you'll need to resize the partitions with parted first. If you start resizing partitions then make sure you have a backup first and only run it from a live CD (knoppix has a graphical version called qtparted).