Dual Booting Windows XP and Fedora Core

[Korre]

I'm pretty much a complete newb in the ways of linux, so i decided that i wanted to dual boot Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 (didn't have CDs for 5 and didn't really care to burn them at the moment) on seperate HD's.

at first i was having trouble getting GRUB to even install to the right place, but using the information in this thread
i was able to get the option of which OS to load upon startup.

my problem is that now i can run linux but when i choose to start windows, the screen blinks and goes back to the list. i can't boot Windows at all. I tried to boot from a Windows CD and fix the MBR, but it didn't do anything.

i'd really like to do this without losing everything on my Windows HD, any ideas?

[Korre]

on a side note, though linux is installed on my new hard drive, and i am in fact running linux because i can't boot windows. the new hard drive (/sdb) is not shown in the boot sequence of my BIOS -- although it is active and i can see it in my devices.

[budman7]

Could you post the contents of your /boot/grub/menu.lst?

And the result of "fdisk -l" as root?

[Korre]

the contents of my /boot/grub/menu.lst are as follows:

#boot=/dev/sda
default=2
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
#hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp.img
title Fedora Core-up (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet initrd /initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

and fdisk -l as root returns:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9726 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 8 64228+ de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 9 9267 74372917+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 9269 9725 3670852+ db CP/M / CTOS / ...

Disk /dev/sdb: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 9729 78043770 8e Linux LVM

[Korre]

ok, i was able to mount my Windows drive through linux and back up all the files that i was affraid to lose onto CD.

i'm now perfectly fine with reinstalling either/both OS's in order to correctly dual boot Windows and Fedora. how do i go about doing it?

[hai]

whem you install linux
you check in ( review and modify patitioning layout)
you will see
the grud boot loader will be install on /dev/sda
you will see
1 fedora /dev/vol/Group00/LogVol00
2 other /dev/hda
you press shift and click mouse in other
change it to window
and /dev/hda you change it in to where you install win if you install win in sda1
you change
windows /dev/sda1
if you want boot win first you check in windows /dev/sda1
that OK