dual boot

[chicha]

On a 40GB HDD i made one partition of 10Gb or so for mint, 1 Gb for swap and the rest is for windowsXP.

i installed mint first and then i installed windows, on their respective partitions.
now when i boot the pc it directly boots winXP.

I am new to linux so please guide me through this thank you.

[prasad_den]

Installing the other way round would have been a breeze without any problems... Anyways , check this..
http://apcmag.com/5459/dualboot_ubuntu_and_windows_xp

Else wait for some FOSS geek to help you..

[cynosure]

This is one hell of a mistake. I made it too.
But this page should help you.Just see if mint is using Grub or LILO and then pick your category. Your options are B3, B4, B5, B6.

If your linux uses Grub, then the most easier option would be to download one iso file from here and burn it onto a CD-RW. It will help you immensely if your linux uses Grub.

Like it helped me when I used Ubuntu, but now with Zenwalk I screwed up LILO and my condition is pathetic. Hope this helps.

[prasad_den]

The section starting "Reinstall GRUB to the MBR" in the link above would be enough for you..