Dual boot FC6 and XP trouble

[beetlebailey79]

I know there are a lot of similar posts but I can't seem to find my situation listed. Here is what I have: I have a Dell laptop which I have removed windows from and put FC6 on a few months ago. I like FC6 but there are certain things I can't seem to work around and I guess it's time to put a windows partition on it until I can learn how to work it correctly. I have the XP disk provided by Dell to do the install but I am having a problem. When I try to install XP, it says inspecting hardware and then locks up. I can't get any further. All of the other instructions I am finding in the forums are people doing a dual boot with windows already on the system and they are adding Fedora. Can someone PLEASE help me? I am not very well versed with Linux yet so the simpler the instructions the better. Thanks to anyone that can help.

[zackf]

Although I have not experienced this myself, I have seen similar posts where people have had to put an NTFS partition on their hard drive first or it will not be recognized. There is a program called Gparted that does this pretty well, a quick search on google and you can find an ISO and boot it straight from CD.

[ajamison]

I had this same issue allthough I was using a desktop with two harddrives and wanted XP on the second Partion of the second drive

My solution to this problem is most likely not going to help you since you only have one hd but what i found is that for some odd reason if you make a seperate boot partion as most linux installs do 9FC6 included)

Occationaly the windows installer hangs on this and will not allow your computer to go any further.

Luckily for me I just had to go into my bios and temporarly disable the first harddrive forcing XP's boot loader to install on the MBR of drive 2 then after the install i re-enabled the 1st drive and set grub up to boot XP.

With your situation I am not sure how to over come it i thought i would put my solution down so maybe a more experienced linux guru can possible adapt it to your situation.

Hope you get it worked out.

In response to zackf I do not think it is so much needing the NTFS to be the first partion as mine is not even the first one i think it has to do with the boot partion starting at the begining of the drive if the boot partion was maybe started at bit 512 or something then maybe it would work.

[bob]

Windows wants and expects to be the first (and only) OS on that drive and isn't recognizing linux partitions.

The best solution would be to back up your data (/home) from Fedora and then either use gparted live http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php to remove all your partitions or use dban http://dban.sourceforge.net/ to completely wipe your drive. Either way, start with a clean slate and then set Windows as your first partition, followed by Fedora on the remainder of the drive and allow grub to set up the dual boot. While you're at it, I'd also set a FAT32 partition to swap data between Windows and Fedora.

With the upcoming release of Fedora7, this would be an excellent time to make the change and pick up the very latest that Fedora has.

[barf]

I dont think your problem lies with Fedora. Is the XP install disk from Dell a MS Windows install disk or a Dell system / software recovery disk. There is no reason I can think of that would stop XP installing on a working system but OEM compiled recovery disks often have anti piracy protection and they look for a key on your system. If this is the case you'll have to talk to Dell.
One other note, when you do reinstall XP it will overwrite your Fedora install. Linux distros recognise other operating systems but Windows is not so polite.

[stoat]

Originally Posted by barf

There is no reason I can think of that would stop XP installing on a working system

Nevertheless, it happens...

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=53530
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=112754
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=153527
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=154022
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=154232
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=154499


UPDATE: Some progress finally has been made with this problem. Go to the HOWTO on this subject for some ideas that work.

[beetlebailey79]

Thank you all for the tips. I will give them a try and let you know what happens! Much appreciated!