XP CD not working - After installing Fedora

Question

Hi All! I recently installed Fedora but i think i did my partitions wrong. Now i cant boot XP. Fedora works fine, but i want XP back. When i put in the XP CD and reboot it states " click any button to install from CD...." I press a button and the screen "Setup is inspecting your computers hardware configuration...." Unfortunately thats as far as it gets and just sits at a black screen and does nothing(I let it run for over an hour to see if it was actually doing anything, but it wasnt) Prior to this install i tried the Recovery console and entered the wrong password a bunch of times and the computer shut down, could this have anything to do with it ? Any suggestions, i dont mind losing all my data(nothing important on there), i just want to know how i can format everything and reinstall xp. Any help would be greatly appreciated,. I have a Dell Inspiron 1300 if that helps.. Steel Monkey

Message Edited by Steel Monkey on 04-18-2007 03:45 AM

Lnx805 · Answer

Hi, Did you set up the system as a dual-boot; that would give you access to both OS's? When you installed Fedora, it takes over track 0 which used for booting. If XP doesn't recognize what's in track 0 it should attempt to format the drive and re-establish a boot record in track 0. What seems odd is your system is stalling, so there may be something else wrong with your system. Perhaps you could boot to the cursor and try 'fixmbr' or other manual command [i.e. format c: /s] to erase Linux and re-initiate the drive. If the format is successful, re-boot the system and go forward with the auto install... Good Luck

kayser · Answer

You could use a live-cd linux system to get back data and save it where you prefer (usb,dvd...) and if you want to wipe out linux and get back to windows you can delete linux partitions running gparted or qtparted from Xwindows or cfisk or fdisk from a shell console. Hope it helps, bye bye

metalsailer · Answer

There are two possible hard drive issues that can interfere with Windows install/startup. Linux installs a boot loader in the first 512 bytes of the hard drive. This is code that boot straps the operating system. The second is the partition tables that section off the disk for different uses.

THE FOLLOWING WILL DESTROY ACCESS TO YOUR DATA.

One way to ensure that no boot loader code is left around and that the partition tables are wiped is to write all zeros to the first couple of disk blocks. You can do this with the Fedora install disk. At the boot prompt, type linux rescue to load the rescue mode of the install disk. Do not let it scan for any installed systems. When you get to a prompt, us the dd command to write all zeros to the disk. Your disk device path will be something like /dev/hda (IDE) or /dev/sda (SCSI). Assuming your device is /dev/hda, do this:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=10

This will write all zeros to the first 10 blocks which will wipe any boot loader code and the partitions tables. If you are security minded, you can ensure that all data on the entire disk is overwritten with zeros by removing the count option. This will take awhile depending on the size of your disk. After the dd command completes, you can restart the computer and Windows should see the disk as a blank hard drive.

plasmabrain · Answer

Thanks man,  using 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda count=10' is the bomb.  I had wasted hours of trying with fdisk to no success.  Using your approach the original XP setup disk went through normally... sort of.  The original XP setup disk I have only shows 130GB available of my 250GB SATA drive... but this is another, unrelated problem.  Probably need a XP SP2 disc, which I do not have. Thanks again to getting past the blank screen.

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XP CD not working - After installing Fedora

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