OFF-TOPIC: Fedora 7 already installed, can't install XP on empty partition

[André Costa]

Hi Aaron,

On 8/11/07, Aaron Konstam <akonstam at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 19:03 -0300, André Costa wrote:
> > Hi Aaron, thks for stepping in.
> >
> > On 8/10/07, Aaron Konstam <akonstam at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 18:07 -0300, André Costa wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > this is somehow off-topic, but hopefully someone here has been through
> > > > this already...
> > > >
> > > > I just bought a shiny new Core 2 Duo machine (Intel DG33BU mobo), with
> > > > a nice 250G SATA disk. Fedora 7 installation went surprisingly well
> > > > (and fast), only problem was that onboard NIC was not recognized, but
> > > > upgrading the kernel offline fixed this. Everything is amazingly fast
> > > > =)
> > > >
> > > > BUT... I need this machine to dual-boot to Windows XP (still addicted
> > > > to some Windows-only games =( ). XP setup CD hangs just after showing
> > > > "examining hardware configuration" or something like that. It doesn't
> > > > really hangs, it just switches to a blank screen and sits there
> > > > forever (I already left it there for more than 15min to no avail).
> > > > Keyboard is responsive and HD led stays on. CTRL+ALT+DEL reboots as
> > > > expected.
> > > >
> > > > I talked to IT guys at work and they told me they've been through this
> > > > already lots of times, it seems XP is unable to properly recognize the
> > > > disk when only Linux is installed on it (?!?), and only solution would
> > > > be to reformat the whole thing and install XP first.
> > > >
> > > > Is that true?
> > >
> > > It is true that it is better to install XP first. I have had cases like
> > > yours. Did you create a partition for XP? One can not tell from your
> > > fdisk -l output. If not you are lost.
> > >
> > > However, If there is such a partition. make it type 7 with fdisk. Then
> > > retry your XP install.
> >
> > I haven't created a partition for XP, but I just did that with gparted
> > on the empty partition, and marked it as HPFS/NTFS (type 7):
> >
> > ~ fdisk -l
> >
> > Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
> > 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> >
> >    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> > /dev/sda1   *           1          13      104391   83  Linux
> > /dev/sda2              14       10467    83971755   8e  Linux LVM
> > /dev/sda3           10468       30401   160119855    7  HPFS/NTFS
> >
> > Still, nothing happens. ... stupid XP, I can't believe I'll have to
> > reinstall everything because of it =/
> >
> > If that's really the case, what should I do? Reboot from Fedora
> > installation CD into rescue mode, run fdisk and remove all partitions?
> >
> > Something just occurred to me: what if I managed to boot from a Linux
> > rescue CD, ran gparted and marked both /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2 as
> > "hidden" partitions? Could this work?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Andre
>
> I apologize for not mentioning the possibility of using gparted. But I am still
> confused. Where is your swap partition. Part of the problem is that XP
> deals with the partition table differently than Linux.

The swap partition is "inside" the LVM partition, as suggested by
anaconda during installation.

> If you have to start again this is what to do. Repartition the disk from
> scratch using fdisk from rescue mode . Arrange to install XP first on
> the first partition. Then install Linux and I am sure it will work. I
> have done this many times and with this arrangement things work.

Cool, thks for confirming that. NTFS will occupy the first 150G, can
this be a problem for grub?

> But please assign a swap partition. Also when installing Linux use the
> Custom partitioning option.

Will do that, thks again.

Regards,

Andre