Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 - Dual booting step by step

[shuvorim]

Are you a new bie? If you need help installing Fedora Core 4 with Windows, here you can find a helpful guide.

Windows XP and Fedora Core 4 - Dual booting step by step

Wish you good luck. Bye.


October 01, 2005 - I updated my site, but forgot to update the link here. Thanks to inform. The above link is working now.

[Redo]

Nice guide on how to bypass GRUB . I won't use a Linux bootloader from my experiences in the past, and these guides are hard to come by.

Now lets hope it works for me

[Omega Blue]

Nothing is wrong with grub. Maybe you're thinking about lilo.

[Redo]

Yes, I had bad experiences with Lilo. I see no reason to use the Linux bootloaders when NTLDR is rock solid.

[imdeemvp]

Very good info for newbies.......BUT you should make simplier.

[shuvorim]

Thank you all for your kind comments. Yes GRUB creates some problems. It is ok if you only use Fedora alone. But if you are using another OS with Fedora, the problem comes to screen.

Okay let's clear it. Say you have Windows 98/2000 and Windows XP together on a single machine. Windows bootloader already made a list of OS choices for you at the boot time. Then you installed Fedora with them. Now what GRUB will do? It will say "Press any key to enter to the boot menu...", you press a key. Then it will show you a list of OS choices. Say, you want to boot in Windows XP (It made two Windows OS to a single label 'DOS'). You select 'DOS' (or Windows, if you renamed it), then again you will have to select Windows XP from the Windows bootloader list.

So, you have to perform 3 steps if you want to keep using GRUB. On the other hand, if you set Windows bootloader instead of GRUB, you will have to select a OS from the list, and then it will boot directly (no more naggy screens). Am I clear?

I never use LILO, so I won't talk about it. But I think it will also require you to perform atleast two steps to boot into an OS.

THANK YOU ONCE AGAIN, CHEERS!!!

[Redo]

Just installed and succesfully dual booted FC4 and WinXP by following those instructions (the dual boot part of them). Very easy to follow and works like a charm! However, I chose not to install Grub the first time around. It wasn't a good decision, and I had to reinstall FC4 again with Grub on the Fedora install partition.

As a side note, never run a repair WinXP installation over a SP2 install. You will be asking for trouble! (and a reformat )

[shuvorim]

Congratulations!!! Yes, Windows repairing mode always creates problems (not only with Windows XP, but also with 2000 & 2003). It's a better decision reinstalling Windows rather than repairing it.

Well I'm going to write another tutorial for a 3 booting system. They will be Windows XP, Fedora Core 4 and FreeBSD 5.4. Give me some time to do some experiment first.

Redo, can you imagine that I'm running Windows XP SP2+Windows 2003 Enterprise Server+Fedora Core 4+FreeBSD 5.4 on a single machine, which has only 256 of SD RAM, a 40 GB Maxtor hard drive, and an old Pentium-III 600 MHz processor ???

Yes, I succeeded to make them work and without facing any errors. And I'm still using the Windows bootloader !!! CHEERS !!!

[Tomoji]

The link to this guide has expired. Is anyone able to help with a copy?