Windows XP Can't install in my HDD :( help help

[manuleka]

i'm currently running Fedora 10 on a single drive 640GB P43.2 GHz rig... now here's the partitions i created while installing Fedora a few months back

Western Digital 640GB

Partition -- Size -- Lable/Mount
Partition1-- 20GB -- / 
Partition2 -- 440GB -- LVM
   LVM1 -- 200GB -- /home/user
   LVM2 -- 238GB -- /home/user/data
   LVM3 -- 2GB -- SWAP
Partition3 -- 140GB -- Unused Space

now i've tried 3 times to install Windows into the Partition3 and then reinstall/fix Grub after but every single time i tried i get an error reporting:

There has been an error with installation blah blah.... so i have to quit the installation, what i find weird is that although i select the unused space i keep getting partition 2 as the selected partition to be formated with NTFS...

-: Partition 2 (Windows XP Fault Tolera(450000MB(450000MB Free)

Why is this? I left the unused 140GB space because i wanted to install WIndows later (4 gaming purposes)

anyone come across this before or can help me out? cheers

[Jonathan183]

Windows often throws its teddy out of the pram if its not installed on the first partition of the first hard drive. Try free-up of area at the start of the disk and try installing Windows again.

For future reference ... installing Windows first then Linux is usually easier and if your struggling with manipulating partitions try PartedMagic

Ed: also sometimes Windows will not install while grub is loaded to the MBR, try using SuperGrub to remove grub from the MBR before you install Windows.

[computerophil]

You can try to prepair with GParted a Partition with about 20GB and formated with NTFS maybe it works.
Also a problem might be: Is this a SATA-HDD so you will have to include the F6-driver with n-lite to XP before.

I hope you can manage that I had Windoof always before Linux not the oter way round.

[manuleka]

bash-3.2$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for manu: 

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00024aa9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        2550    20482843+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2   *        2551       59917   460800427+  8e  Linux LVM
/dev/sda3           59918       77824   143837977+   7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/sda3 was unused space before i tried to install Windows - which for some reason became NTFS (although formating only started and stopped in a few seconds)

@computerohil - YES it's a SATA Drive

[computerophil]

@computerohil - YES it's a SATA Drive

Then you will have to include the F6-Driver (chipset driver) for most boards (with intel chipset, AMD-boards are cleverer for this things)

I recommend n-lite to do this (it's not difficult, you take a windows machine, download this program which is easy to use download the driver for ichX according to your chipset on the board and include it to the image of your XP, burn annother CD now including the driver and it will recognize the HD for the install)

Good luck

[manuleka]

Then you will have to include the F6-Driver (chipset driver) for most boards (with intel chipset, AMD-boards are cleverer for this things)

I recommend n-lite to do this (it's not difficult, you take a windows machine, download this program which is easy to use download the driver for ichX according to your chipset on the board and include it to the image of your XP, burn annother CD now including the driver and it will recognize the HD for the install)

Good luck

thanks - i will look into that now... i just don't wanna go through reinstallations (i hate running updates over and over again)

[Lostfarmer]

From your fdisk output you have sda2 marked bootable, you will need to have sda3 set bootable to install XP. Remember when XP installs it will over write the MBR and you will loose GRUB.

There has been an error with installation blah blah.... so i have to quit the installation,

blah blah does not give us much usefull information on just what the error is.

[manuleka]

From your fdisk output you have sda2 marked bootable, you will need to have sda3 set bootable to install XP. Remember when XP installs it will over write the MBR and you will loose GRUB.

wouldn't the XP installation inactivate other drives? and enable bootability on the selected drive? i've never had issues where installation would be dependent on the bootable drive, Windows always tend to create it's own...

by the way how would i make that particular partition bootable from within Fedora 10?

[computerophil]

by the way how would i make that particular partition bootable from within Fedora 10?

With GParted you can also set the bootflag
But I don't think it is necessary to do.
And if you later reinstall GRUB less. Important is that the MBR is on a bootable Partition and that the bootloader will be in there.

[Lostfarmer]

wouldn't the XP installation inactivate other drives?

I'm not 100% sure, but I do not think so. If there is no active partition then XP will make one active.

You can use 'fdisk /dev/sda' then press 'm' for menu and look for 'toggle boot flag' , besure to toggle partition 2 off and partition 3 on. You do not want 2 active/boot partitions set.