Inspiron 1545 conversion woes

Greetings to the Laptop Forum!

My Inspiron 1545 was purchased in 2009, equipped as follows:

• Ubuntu equipped (original was 8.10, immediately updated to 9.04, now 9.10)
  
• Intel Dual Core
• 4 Gb RAM
• 250 Gb SATA drive
• 8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive

I originally bought this with the intention of installing my own version of WindowsXP in a separate partition of the Ubuntu drive. That dream died a sad and lonely death.

Here's my current situation, and my reason for writing. I have not been able to install XP. My techie friend and I tried everything to no avail. It keeps coming up as a blue screen of death. And now, my 250 gig drive is showing up as only an 80 gig drive!!

I'm deeply frustrated. We figured that Dell had put some sort of whammy on the drive. I bought a new drive, a 320 gig, installed that drive and tried to install that drive with an original, authentic, holographed WindowsXP disc. Blue Screen of Death.  What do I need to do to restore the rest of my drive? What do I need to do to install Windows?? I'm willing to wipe it all to convert to Windows, and perfectly willing (anxious even) to get Windows in as the primary OS with another, newly installed partition for Ubuntu. I have to have Office installed. Open Office simply does not convert to Microsoft without major repairs on every file. Because work is totally MSOffice and because everyone with whom I interface is MSOffice oriented, I simply cannot use OO as my primary suite any longer.

Any help you can offer to make my 1545 work the way it needs to will be greatly appreciated. If you need more info to make suggestions, please ask.

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DeanZF