Windows XP installation problem over Fedora 13

[lilpirate]

Hello,

First of all, I'd like to tell you that I had installed Windows 7 (clean) on my new computer. Then, I installed Fedora 13 64-bit. Eventually, I wanted to install Windows XP, so, formatted the drive (NTFS) which had Windows 7. Now, I have Fedora 13 running good. But, now, when I'm trying to install Windows XP I'm getting different errors. At first, it was - "A disk read error has occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart".

I took a MS-DOS 6 CD and booted up. Ran chkdsk, but it checked only my CD-Drive. Nothing else. When I tried to run fdisk and looked for existing paritions, it showed me nothing inspite of having 6 partitions on my 1TB HDD.

One of it is ext4 (Fedora), swap and others are FAT and NTFS.

Now, after running chkdsk, when I tried to install XP, I get an error - Error loading operating system.

I googled, and found this - http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000730.htm And I'm pretty sure that my issue is "Cause" (as on the page) #3, that is -

Issue with drive's partitions.

And it the solution is suggests is -

This issue can be cause if the disk drives are not properly setup or have been changed by another program, such as a utility that comes with a Linux distribution. To resolve this issue, delete and recreate all the partitions before running the Windows XP setup.

I don't want to delete and recreate all the partitions

I've well setup-ed Fedora installation. Does anybody know a solution?

--lilpirate.

 

[MrLinux]

You probably need to use F6 to load the MotherBoard chipset drivers from Floppy so the XP installer can access the drive.

 

[MrLinux]

Just one after-thought... if you are trying to set-up a multi-boot system, it's far easier if you install Windows first and Linux last, doing it the other way round is often a real pain in the ; also the XP installer doesn't always understand extended or Linux partitions, they can (some times) cause it to crash when scanning the hard drive.

 

[Guest]

Hi there, I usually Set multipartitions up using my linux multiboot system. Best way to do it is... Install the Linux first creating partitions for the soon to be installed other versions of Operating Systems, install the version/s of windows in Decending order Eg. Win 7 then,Vista, XP, ME, 98, 95, etc.
After that you can use the linux boot loader eg. Grub and name the Partitions in the allocated spaces... If you by accident name eg. Vista Partition Win XP Pro you can rename it when you next reboot your PC... you just need a little knowledge on the workings of installations and partitioning and your good to go.

 

[Ijack]

I took a MS-DOS 6 CD and booted up. Ran chkdsk, but it checked only my CD-Drive. Nothing else. When I tried to run fdisk and looked for existing paritions, it showed me nothing inspite of having 6 partitions on my 1TB HDD.

You say you have 6 partitions. As an MBR disk can only have four primary partitions, that means that you must have an extended partition and at least 3, maybe more, logical drives in the extended partition. Either that or you have a GUID patitioned disk, in which case no wonder the DOS utilities couldn't see it. (And DOS chkdsk isn't going to help with anything but FAT partitions.) Now, although you can install Windows in a logical drive I believe that you can only boot it from a primary partition, so that's a consideration.

I think it was unwise to use DOS utilities on a disk with non-DOS partitions. It could well be that this has corrupted the partition table and/or some of the partitions. I'd be inclined to agree with the advice of others - start over; it's going to be less trouble in the long run. Install XP first, then Linux. And, do you really need 6 partitions? It might be easier to stick with 4 primary partitions.

Also, as MrLinux says, you'll almost certainly need to load drivers for the XP install (unless you have an SP3 CD). Be aware, in addition, that with some modern hard disks you may need to change a jumper to work properly with XP.

I'd have left the Windows 7 alone - it's a better OS and plays better with newer hardware.