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Dual Booting

Once the Fedora installation is complete, start fedora in rescue mode and make a copy of the Linux boot sector onto the FAT32 partition and name the copy "fedora.bin".

1. To start fedora in rescue mode:
   • Boot from your install disk 1
   • At the Linux prompt, enter "linux rescue"
   • Specify your keyboard and language stuff. Your Linux partitions will get mounted under "/mnt/sysimage".
   • Run the following command:
     

     #chroot /mnt/sysimage
     

     This command makes "/mnt/sysimage" your root directory. So the filesystem looks the way it would if you booted up normally.

2. To make a copy onto a FAT32 (vfat) partition:
   • Mount the FAT32 partition if it's not mounted yet. If it isn't listed in the df output, it hasn't been mounted yet.
     

     #mount -t msdos /dev/hda5 /win
     

   • Run the following command, which copies the first sector of the /boot partition, 512 byte size to the /win partition as the binary file, fedora.bin:
     

     #dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/win/fedora.bin bs=512 count=1
     

   • Substitute the path for the if= parameter (the input file) with the appropriate partition from the previous step, set if= to /dev/hda2. Substitute the path for the of= parameter (the output file) with whatever is appropriate for your system. The example here (of=/win/fedora.bin) is for copying onto a FAT32 partition called win.
3. Reboot into Windows
4. Copy the fedora.bin file to C:\
5. Run notepad and edit "C:\boot.ini". Note that C:\boot.ini is a hidden system file, so it probably won't show up in Windows Explorer. To edit the file, try: "Start->Run" and enter: "notepad C:\boot.ini". Add the following line at the end: "c:\fedora.bin="Fedora Linux".
   If your C: filesystem is NTFS (not FAT32), you must edit C:\boot.ini as a user with administrator-level privileges.

   Below is what my "boot.ini" file looks like:

   [boot loader]
   timeout=5
   default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
   [operating systems]
   multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
   c:\fedora.bin="Linux Fedora"
   

6. Reboot again. You should be able to pick either Windows or Linux. Selecting Linux will start GRUB

Installing Dual Boot Windows 2000 or XP and Linux
Partitioning Drive
Installing Fedora
Dual Booting
Troubleshooting XFree86 GUI display!