[TriLUG] Dual booting Windows XP and FC4

[Neil L. Little]

Ok, noob time again...

I have installed FC4 on a system that is primarily a Windows XP machine 
(for now).

WinXP (NTFS file system) is on the Master drive (hda).
FC4 is on the Slave drive (hdb).

Having installed FC4 on the slave drive So I finish the load and reboot 
expecting to have grub load, direct it to the FC4 drive and go through 
my first boot.

Well, it never happeded. WinXP boots and continues on like nothing has 
ever changed.

I  have discovered that grub never got installed on my Master drive. I 
attempted to manually install grub and recieved a message "file system 
unknown" as soon as I tried to set the root device to my windows partition.

Doing some research I have discovered that there is a problem reading 
NTFS... or its a feature that is turned off in the kernal...  or I have 
to add support which means a kernal rebuild (gnashing teeth and pulled 
hair at this point). Maybe not even being able to write to NTFS at all 
(beating of the head on first available flat surface). Ok, its late at 
night and its time to drop back and regroup.

So here are my questions at this point...

1. Can I get Linux to read/write to/from an NTFS drive. Meaning put grub 
on it.
2. Will I be able to avoid having to to fancy presti-digi-tations to get 
this Dual boot thing going like:
                   a) changing boot sequence in BIOS
                   b) adding a special FAT partition
                   c) adding a switch to change master/slave jumpers.
3. Adding a boot loader that runs from the WinXP side.

So. can anyone shed any light?

73,

Neil Little, WA4AZL      JARS Forever! ...er, TRILUG too!