right, but Windows still needs certian files on its own to boot, and he deleated at least one of those files. Grub just loads the Windows loader.

I got back into XP (I don't think I would ever been happy to see XP), but at the expense of yet another XP install and FC5. So now I have a few more things to test before trying FC5 again (as well as making a backup). Hopefully then I can get this thing to dual boot.

gah kirb! What did you do???

Ok, all you *theoretically* needed to do was unplug/disable the first harddrive, boot into the XP cd, go to the recovery console, and fix the boot and MBR. Windows, for some stupid reason, always assumes its the only OS so will automatically install its boot info into the MBR of the first harddrive. Note that GRUB isn't what actually boots XP. Hence the "chainloader +1" thing, as it just runs whatever boot manager is on hdd1.

If that didn't work you could also do the windows XP "repair install" option that you are presented when you attempt to install over a partiton that already has windows XP. Again, do this with the XP drive as the first drive (easiest way is to disable the first drive in the BIOS, as then you don't need to mess with jumpers )

I tried the recovery console, nothing worked. I didn't try the "repair" XP thing because the drive letters it was showing in the XP setup were not the same as the XP installed (old->new, C->H/I, D->C, H->D). I wasn't about to see if it didn't care about that and just went and did another install.

Also, /boot was within the FC5 partition, not its own. Now that I know that it should have its own, one will be made. Also, ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com were not there on the XP drive. I got those from the new XP (editing boot.ini as needed) and now this XP works just as good as it did before.

/boot doesn't need to be on its own partition

I think it is about time maybe I get my comp working right then on a dualbooting scheme. I wonder if it would be possible though without a whole ton of work. If anyone knows one way or the other, let me know, if you want info on my drive, let me know.

To dual boot... Install XP first, then linux/grub. Simple

I don't know why you all are having so many problems with that simple concept

I did that with Suse and things didn't go good. That is when proegssilb looked at my machine and set it up in this weird fashion, but with FC4 this time. I really need to redo it and put Ubuntu on it.

Yeah, stick with primary partitions. You only need extended partitions if you need more than 4 partitions, and then you only use them for data...

kind of the plan, else I would have to somehow find a way to back up my data, and I don't think there is enough HD room around here to do that.

Probably has to do with the bit where NTLDR isn't where it's supposed to be. And yes, I've seen that once or twice. So far as I recall, that was the case with Theo's system. Then again, it was originally a triboot between 2k, XP, and Linux.

Oh yeah, and the occasional system where XP insists on being the bootloader. I've got one of those systems. Or so it seems to me...