Im sorry about adding to the countless posts of dual booting xp and rh but i cant seem to find the answers. Im trying to dual boot both xp and rh9 on my laptop. I used Partition Magic to make room for linux, then Boot magic to switch between the 2 OS's. So far the best result i had was...
Id boot up and boot magic would ask which OS to boot into...if i choose linux, it then sends me to the linux bootloader screen where it asks me again which OS to boot into. If i choose linux from either screen its fine, but if i choose XP from the linux bootloader screen, i get a blue screen/fatal error message and a lock up. Actually, here are my questions.

1, How do i fix the boot loader problem{grub, bootmagic}?
2, Whats "Logical"?, i get asked about it in the bootmagic program
3, Exactly how much space should i set aside for linux? {30gig HD}
4, Do i have to add a small partition before windows or will grub put it ther itself?
5, Should i just follow the instructions in partition magic to "install another operating system"? or only use it to manage the partitions?

thanks for any help.

First things first. Windows XP absolutely LOVES to overwrite the MBR (master boot record) which is where you will need your bootloader for linux (be it GRUB or LILO) to reside. This is your problem...windows is messing things up for your linux install. Simple solution...I'll start from the beginning assuming a blank hard disk:

1. Absolutely make sure that your boot partition is actually active AND that it is named /boot. This will allow GRUB to detect it. I don't think LILO has a problem with this but better safe than sorry.

2. Next, fdisk the Hard drive and make a partition for Windows XP and leave whatever you want to allocate to Linux unpartitioned.

3. Install Windows XP onto this partition. (This should be a primary partition!)

4. Boot to the Linux install CD and partition the remaining unpartitioned part of the HD and install linux. (Install GRUB or LILO into the MBR, it should detect both OSes).

5. Reboot and enjoy your new dual boot system.
_____________________________________________

Now if it doesn't detect any OSs...and it should detect both linux AND windows...you can edit the grub.conf or lilo.conf and FORCE it to. Here is how to do that.

You'll have to reboot for lilo changes to take place but I don't think you will for the GRUB ones to. I could be mistaken...might as well reboot for it anyways :cheesy: Hope this helps!

actually for lilo to work dont you have to run the command to make it work. this is what i have always thought and i have always had to do to make it work but maybe not but you shoudl try it jst in case