Dual Boot Systems - Fedora/Windows XP

First thing's first ... capacity planning. Set aside a good chunk of the hard drive space for Windows. Then, plan out the Fedora layout.


Now start the installation process. ALWAYS install Windows first. Otherwise it will mess with you MBR and delete its contents. We don't want this.


After Windows is finished installing move on to Fedora. Both installs should go relatively smoothly.


Now it is time to boot to the grub menu for the first time! You will notice that when you reach the grub menu it gives you only 5 seconds to select a system to boot to. You will want to adjust this. It is simple. By default it probably selected the Fedora system to boot to first, so by now you are probably at the login screen.


Login to Fedora and type "vi /etc/grub.conf". Adjust the blah parameter to something like 30 instead of 5. Depending on your needs you may also want to boot to Windows by default instead of Fedora. To accomplish this simply move the Windows section before the Fedora section in the grub.conf file. And there you have it! A fully functioning dual boot Fedora / Windows XP Pro machine!



Tagged:  Linux