First off let me say I am a linux newbie but being that I am in college for software engineering it is something I need to begin to learn and I know I will enjoy learning it. I know a little but not huge amounts about it. Anyways currently I am running my own server with Windows 2003 Server. My system is a Dell 1600SC with 2 SCSI hard drives (each 70GB) and a single 120GB IDE drive. I have Windows 2003 Server installed on one of the SCSI drives and the IDE drive is where I would like to load Linux. I would like to have a prompt screen when I boot the computer asking me which OS I would like to load. I have Redhat 8.0 and I have tried installing it several times with no sucess to what I want. I have sure enough gotten Redhat to work and what not but no prompt screen asking me which OS to boot. Here is what I have done. Redhat sees my drives as this when I load Linux... hba, sca, scb. The sc's are obviously my SCSI drives and the hb is my IDE drive. So since my IDE drive is blank with no previous OS's or file systems on it I set redhat to use autopartition on this drive. Then I select that I would like to use the GRUB boot loader and put the boot partition in the MBR of my IDE drive. Well sure enough Redhat installs just fine and the OS reboots. But now it just boots straight into Windows without ever asking me what OS I want to load. The only way I can boot into Redhat is if I put in the boot disk I created when installing it. Then it will boot into Redhat when I start up instead of Windows however this is far from what I want. I have deleted Linux from this IDE drive multiple times and installed it with all the other options such as the LILO boot loader and I have also tried installing it to the first sectors of the IDE drive as well which is another option. I would say I have tried installing it atleast 6 times with no success to what I want. I have searched dozens of topics online but nowhere have I been able to find a working solution. Even the redhat documentation seems to think you can just set it up with GRUB and it should just automatically ask you which OS to boot. This is what they state in there documentation which can be found here. I don't know what they are talking about because it isn't anything like that at all for me atleast. I am just wondering if anyone can guide me step by step through this process. All I want it to do is ask me in a prompt when I boot which OS I would like to boot. Even the computers at my school have this prompt screen asking you if you want to boot Linux or Windows yet no one seems to know how it works it seems. Remember I am not a idiot so you don't need to guid me step by step with the next buttons but as far as command lines for the shell I am not very familiar with many of them yet so I would appreciate it if you could explain more when it comes to the "harder" steps of this. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!
Chris Jumonville

Ok I am going to make things worse here... I would still appreciate it if someone could answer my original question so when I work out this current problem I can get the dual boot setup fine.

Here is the horrible news. When I installed my most recent trial of trying to set up this dual boot environment I happened to accidently specify that the GRUB boot loader be in either the first sector of my WINDOWS HARD DRIVE! or the MBR of my WINDOWS HARD DRIVE! To tell you the truth I am not sure which option I selected as I forgot but that was a mistake. I didn't mean to do it to the Windows drive I meant to do it to the Linux drive. Well guess what? Now when you restart my system if won't boot at all. It will sit there after with the GRUB prompt and just sit forever. You try and put in the Windows 2003 Server CD to repair what I did wrong but it doesn't let you boot from ANY CD except the Redhat one. If I use my Redhat boot disk it will let you boot up into Redhat 8.0 and that works fine but as for Windows it will not boot at all. I do not have a Windows Recovery floppy disk and I honestly need to get back into my windows OS. I have some insanely important files in there and if I don't fix Windows I am seriously beyond screwed. I mean years work is down the drain. I know this is my own fault for messing with the system but what can I say I made a mistake. Luckily I have half of my data on there backed up externally but the other stuff I don't! Does anyone know how I can possibly recover windows? It won't let me boot from the CD and I don't have a floppy. I know that it is probably not booting because the MBR file for Linux got written over the Windows MBR more than likely but I am not sure if I chose to have it write to the MBR or the first sector. Needless to say I chose one or the other and it was on my Windows drive by accident! Does anyone know how I can fix this? I really will do anything it takes to repair that Windows 2003 Server installation and get back my files, I can't beleive I was stupid enough to do something like this. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Chris Jumonville

anyone?

Ok well I got it fixed myself, Im suprised though that this many people viewed this and no one has tried to help me. Thanks anyways

this is the first time ive viewed it, but i think youd get more of a response if it wasnt so freakin' long. just get to the point, most people dont wanna read a novel about everything youve been through - just whats happening now.

yes but I am a novice with Linux so I need to explain exactly everything I did so people can better help me. I am not going to understand some complicated response you know.