newest info: f10 appears to quit when starting X server, see below I had modified f10 grub.conf to have 3 stanzas 1 f10 orig rhgb quiet 2 f10 norhgbquiet 3 fc5 chainloader But, had to hit esc while booting to see my 3 stanzas ie I dont get presented with this list unless i hit esc so there is more here I dont understand ----from f10 grub.conf #boot=/dev/sda default=0 timeout=0 splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz hiddenmenu title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686) root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=449a78aa-d4d5-4e 91-bf9c-5833d7218c8f rhgb quiet scsi_mod.scan=sync initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img title Fedora (2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686) norhgbquiet root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=449a78aa-d4d5-4e 91-bf9c-5833d7218c8f scsi_mod.scan=sync initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.5-117.fc10.i686.img title fc5copy hd1,5 chainloader root (hd1,5) chainloader +1 ------ end f10 grub.conf this last enables me to boot back into fc5 without using knoppix cd but I can see this list only using esc selecting the norhgbquiet stanza gives me a long list of boot msgs, lasting longer than seen before and it appears to quit starting X server screen then goes blank does this help narrow down what is wrong? Jack