Ive read Phantasms guides but they fail to mention what to do if I wanted a dual boot with redt hat 9 with XP if I have to constantly reformat windows everyweek. Now we all can agree on XP being a fag of an OS. No wonder why I have to reload XP every few weeks. There must be a way to not corrupt the grub boot loader everytime I need to reload windows. Any suggestions???

Windows will always overwrite your bootloader. No way around it. Just use the floppy you made during RH install to boot into Linux and reinstall Grub every time. Or use some third bootloader (you'd have to reinstall that with a bootable floppy every time too)

Like Nodsu said windows likes to be the first OS to load and it will overwrite grub, but you can install grub to the MBR of your primary drive and then boot both OS's with grub. Are both OS's on the same drive? Or separate ones? Check this out for more info http://www.redhat.com/advice/tips/dualboot.html
HTH

they are on the same hard disk.

Install Linux on your partition & ask for lilo/grub to be installed in the boot record of that partition alone & also make sure you do a boot floppy.

Boot on that floppy & do Phantasm's patented spell of multi-boot ghost summoning. In case you're not familiar with it, type this ->

dd if=/dev/<partition-onwhich-you've-installed-linux> of=/bootsect.lin bs=512 count=1

Copy that bootsect.lin file on a floppy or on a FAT partition ( Linux won't write on an NTFS partition ). Then boot windows & modify the boot.ini file by adding Part 2 of Phant's patented spell of multi-boot ghost summoning like this ->

c:\bootsect.lin="My Cool Linux"

Now whenever you need to re-install Windows, back up the bootsect.lin file & once you're done re-installing windows, recopy the file where the windows OS loader can access it & add the line to the boot.ini file again.

That should work.

If it's GRUB or LILO that's giving you a headache, try FDISK /MBR. Windows XP will rebuild the Master Boot Record when it needs to.

He's not asking how to get rid of Grub/Lilo but how to keep from it getting erased at every windows re-install.

The solution could be simpler: Don't format. That way it won't overwrite the master boot record. You can install the operating system to the same partition, just choose not to repair but to install to it. It'll then ask if you want to delete the previous installation, just answer yes. This leaves the old settings and apps to "Documents and Settings" and "Program Files" however, but you can delete the unneeded files easily if you want to.