Ok, I've looked at a hundred pages showing how to dual boot linux and winxp. What I did to do this is the following: because of reasons that are to long to explain, I installed RedHat first, but I did this to my second hard drive. Both of these drives were unpartitioned. I setup the /boot on the first sector of the second drive, where redhat was. Then I installed WinXP on the first drive. I used my bootdisk for redhat to start linux up. then i went to the / directory and did: dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/bootsect.lnx bs=512 count=1. I then copied this to a floppy, then restarted into windows, copied bootsect.lnx to the h: drive (my "c:" drive in windows, since it was installed after the partitions for linux were made). then i went into the boot.ini file and added c:\bootsect.lnx="Red Hat Linux" When this didn't work, I tried using the dd in the following different ways (each time copying the file named to disk, then to h:\, then changing the boot.ini): dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/linux.bin bs=512 count=1. this didn't work either, so i saw another thread that said bs=1 count=512, so i tried this with both of the previous files, both not working. i get the same error every time the win boot manager comes up: it gives me the option of winxp or red hat linux, so i choose red hat linux, it pauses for a sec, then a message comes up that windows cannot read from the specified boot disk, i press enter and the comp restarts. i can only get into linux with the boot floppy. any ideas??

Once XP's NTLDR passes control to the bootsect.lnx, it won't be able to access the boot files on the 2nd HDD at that time. There is no way to make a valid path to another disk via the boot sector. Even if the HDDs are identical models, the boot sector for one will not be the same as the other. The boot sector code is also not smart enough to switch drives on its own. Remember it is a small chunk of lowly machine level coding in the boot sector that accesses the HDDs higher level OS mini file system drivers (boot files). You would have to install Linux on the 2nd disk with the 1st disk having the bootable, ACTIVE, primary partition. That way you write the boot sector on the first drive, as well as the boot files needed.

??? How do i do that? is that within cmos i would do that? im kind of a newbie. i understand what your saying, but dont know how to do it

I'm not sure how to answer your question as I don't know how you had your PC setup. How about some basics? Most machines, when you get them, have the BIOS boot option set to floppy, CD, IDE0, IDE1... or some similar order. With two HDDs, one as IDE0 primary, the other as whatever, the IDE0 primary HDD is the boot drive (given the above boot order). All boot files HAVE to go onto that ACTIVE primary partition. One way to assure compatiblitly amoungst the OSs out there is to make a small 50-100MB DOS active primary partition on the IDE0 HDD. Then you can install your OSs, starting from oldest to newest (for Microsoft OSs) and lastly, your flavour of Linux. In this manner, NT/W2k/XP/.NET pickup the Win9x bootsector (making a bootsect.dos file). That order of MS OSs also ensures that the lastest MS bootloader (NTLDR) is used. When you install your Linux last, LILO (or I imagine GRUB) will pick up the MS NT type bootsector and give you the option of booting Linux or Microsoft. Given that you appear to want to use the MS bootloader instead of LILO/GRUB, make that IDE0 ACTIVE primary partition FAT. Install your Linux to the 2nd HDD. Do your same dd command to make the bootsect.lnx (or try dougknox.com's way). Make a Linux floppy boot disk - TEST that it boots properly. Then install your XP into the rest of the empty space on the IDE0 HDD. This will kill your Linux until you add the line: c:\bootsect.lnx="your Linux name here" to the boot.ini file. You should be good to go then.

I have a similar question. I currently have Win Xp installed on the MBR. Also, my hard drive is currently broken up into two partitions. One is running WinXP and the other I have Red Hat 8. Now, when I installed Red Hat, I installed LILO on the /boot partition of the hard drive instead of the MBR, because I don't want to clobber up the MBR. I want the NTloader to dual boot my PC. Now, I tried the same procedure that Ryan did. I loaded Linux using bootable floppy and copied the bootsect.lnx file to a floppy disk. Then I restarted WinXP, and copied the bootsect.lnx file to c: and edited the boot.ini file adding c:\bootsect.lnx="Red Hat Linux". When i reload the PC, i do get an option to run Linux or Winxp, but when I click on linux, it gives me an error reporting that the system could not run Linux, and there is not enough memory. My PC IS a PIII 800, 512 MB with 10 GB for linux and 50 for Win. Also, when I installed /boot partition, I could NOT install it on the 1st 1024 cylinders of the hard drive, and I forced the use of lba32format. If anyone knows what I am talking about, and can help me out.. that would be great.

can someone teach me how to make dual booting win xp and RedHat 8.0 from the beginning to the end...

Try this http://www.redhat.com/tech/books/RHL_Survival_Kits/ch03_Fa.html It's a step by step instruction for XP on your first drive and redhat 8.0 on your second drive.