Hasta La Motion!

im extremely new with any linux type OS, but i felt it was quite necessary, so i decided to install it on my laptop that has XP already installed.

I figured to do a duel boot.
Ive never done anything like this before.

so what ive done, is create 4 partitions
1. ext2 50mb, which is the boot
2. NFTS, 200,000mb, XP os
3. linux-swap, 2046mb, the swap
4. ext3, 100,000mb. gentoo installed

now, i did some reading and come upon, something regarding the 1024 cylinder boundary.
so putting my boot in the first 50mb was to be safe, not sure if that was necessary, but just incase any one was unsure, the xp OS did boot, after it was past the 1024 cylinder, or what magicpatition considered the 1024th (this is the program i used and it stated the partition with XP was pass 1024 boundary)

i just now installed Gentoo, so now having both XP and Gentoo, in there respected partitions, I have two questions.

1.what is the next step to make it so i am able to select the OS i would like to boot.
(gentoo boots and i have no option to select XP)

but the next question spawns out of the inability to log into gentoo.

2.during installation i made an exrta effort to write down the root password, user name and passwords, for log in.
So being 100% confident that the user name and password are correct, i am 100% unsure why it tells me they are invalid, lol.

any help is greatly appreciate.
this is my 1st post here, and i look forward to posting here more often, Thanks.