have xp pro on 1 hd as master, and red hat linux 9 on another hd as slave. 1 reader cdrom, 1 burner,1 dvd,1 floppy. new computer,built,nothing preinstalled. i installed xp months ago on 40g hd. then i added 2nd hd(8g)3wks ago and installed linux on it, and dual booted, putting grub on mbr of hda(xp). it worked great. then i messed with my xp hd because it wasn't showing all 40g,and i wanted it to. disk admin showed 3 partitions,but 2 were unknown,the 1st and last(i don't know why). i used disk admin and partition magic to get all 3 partitions showing,and formatted in ntfs. don't remember which one worked for this process,since i was playing. then i lost my dual boot capability. i get the menu and linux will come up fine, but xp will not. i get a text message 'booting dos,rootnoverify (hd0,4),chainloader+1, and it goes nowhere. if i detach the linux hd and boot to xp i get 'grub error.' i then can put the xp cd in and reboot and choose repair & 'rewrite mbr,'& xp will then work fine by itself. then i hook them both up again, and reinstall linux(new install wiping out all linux partitions),and the same thing happens. putting boot loader on first sector(/dev/hdb1),rather than mbr(hda)(those are the options the system shows), gives the same problem.done this multiple times. while installing linux,the config shows /dev/hda free free space 8(mb) /dev/hda1 extended 8017 /dev/hda5 ntfs 8017 /dev/hda2 ntfs 24215(starts1024) /dev/hda3 ntfs 8 /dev/hdb /dev/hdb1 /boot ext3 102 /dev/hdb2 / ext3 5946 /dev/hdb3 swap 1992 the 1st xp partition(ext) graphically shows 1/4 used,but it won't say what it is,& i didn't put anything on it myself. HOW CAN I GET MY DUAL BOOTING BACK? it worked before i messed with the xp partitions. there seems to be no problem with linux itself, and it's ok with me if i reinstall it a hundred times, but i really didn't want to wipe out xp and reinstall that, since i do have stuff on it. after i fix this dual booting, i was going to install windows server2003, on 1 of the free areas on 1st hd,and reinstall linux to get it to include server2003 in the dual booting. server is for learning purposes only,to keep me marketable for a job, so i don't need much room.

Linda, Can you upload /boot/grub/grub.conf file if you installed Grub boot loader or /etc/lilo.conf if lilo is installed

i bit the bullet and wiped out my 40g hd,suspecting that the very first small partition was where the system wanted the booting info, and i had messed with that.i reinstalled xppro,and made a partition for xp,and left empty space for server2003. xp cooperated with this,and i put xp on first partition. then i put server2003 on empty space,and the install partitioned and formatted it for me, and picked up the xp, and dual booted those 2 all by itself.then i reinstalled linux 9 on the other hd,AGAIN,and set up dual booting,putting boot loader on mbr of hda. i used the 'add' option there,to enter 2003os,because it didn't show that it picked it up. but even though i entered a new option and called it 'server,' i probably didn't have to. everything works now. when i turn on,i get the dual boot selection,and the selections say linux,dos,and server. if i click on my entry 'server' it isn't recognized(i forgot the exact message right now). if i choose linux i go right to linux. if i choose dos,i get the windows dual boot screen,which lets me choose xppro or server2003. pretty cool,i thought!so i now have access to 3 os,using 2 hds. quite happy with linux pretty much making this happen. i read plenty trying to do all this,and didn't want to resort to lilo to even see if it would work. i just have to now put all applications back on,that i had to wipe out.a lot of learning,and i really appreciate someone responding to my question. thankyou to ilsp2003