Triple booting

[fluxtea]

not sure if I am in the correct forum, sorry if I am not. I am trying to triple boot. I am using a Dell Dimensions E520. Intel P 2.8GhZ, 1G mem, 500G sd. I have the drive partitioned as such:20G unpartitioned(freeBSD),30G Fat32(Windows), 1G linux swap, 400G ext3(Fedora).
I curently have Unbuntu on the 4th partition. When I go to install Windows I get the BSofD,
stateing that Windows will halt install as not to damage my computer. It ask me to run disk scan(Done). I've also run a memory check(good). This computer originally had WindowsXP on it but i installed over it by accident a year ago with Unbuntu and no originall disk was sent with it so I've been using copied versions to install from. Could my system be hash marked for the original CD? I also suspect I need a BIOS update but havn't figured out how to install the Windows .EXE verson I have of the update. Also I have 2 seperate cd's to install from 1 was an actuall windowsXP cd, outcome was the same. Any idea's? Any suggestions would be a great help!

[Jonathan183]

Welcome to the forums fluxtea

Not sure if this helps but Windows normally wants to occupy the first partition on the first hard drive in the system. Others have also reported issues trying to install Windows when grub is on the MBR of the hard drive.

It may be worth you checking the free space for the Windows install is at the beginning of the hard drive and also try using Supergrub to replace grub with generic Windows code. If you need to rearrange partitions the PartedMagic CD is a quick download and burn to disk and makes the job of resizing and moving partitions easy.

[fluxtea]

Thanks for the info. I'll try putting Fat32 first. I ceated the partitions w/ gparted. Is PartedMagic better?

[oz]

Thanks for the info. I'll try putting Fat32 first. I ceated the partitions w/ gparted. Is PartedMagic better?

Parted Magic is Gparted, along with some other handy-to-have utilities.

[Jonathan183]

No they are the same ... at least as far as partitioning is concerned.