Recently, I helped a friend of mine setup Linux on his machine. He wanted me to wipe out all of his Windows partition, so I did. Now he wants to put Windows back on. He told me that the computer will boot off the Windows CD, but then it comes up with some error at setup. Could this be because there is a different filesystem on the machine? If so, how do I deal with this issue?

i cant think of how this would relate to the filsystems, but maybe if we new the error we could help out a bit more. ask him about it.

It's not because of any different filesystem - it's still running off of the CD at that point (and it really wouldn't care even if it wasn't - Windows likes to reformat during an installation, so it really doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to what's currently on the hard drive). What is the error he's getting, as that will be the most helpful in diagnosing the problem?

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Again, you should post this on a Windows forum:
http://www.techguy.org/

Actually, I've experienced otherwise...

If the windows disk dosn't find free space, or a windows-type partition, it seems to think that there is no HDD at all -- the install would just hang at a blank blue screen. {I could very well be wrong about this, but that's the way it seemed to me the last time I teied to install Windows in a machine with no free space or Win Compatible partitions.)

For the OP, I'd suggest popping in a LiveCD (or most Linux install disks will do) and using [c]fdisk to wipe your partition table before running the windows disk.

No, the General forum is where Windows questions go.

I don't know about the free space theory; that might do what the OP described. However, a few weeks ago I put Win2K back on my friend's computer after he'd bad Kubuntu on it, and I know there weren't any Win-compatible partitions there. Had lots of free space, though, so that's still a possibility.

Alternatively, maybe XP (which I'm assuming is what the OP is using) has a different set of problems than 2K does...I've never tried installing it.

It doesn't help the OP any, but part of why I moved to Linux only was that in 2004, I reformated my hard drive, preperatory to reinstalling Win2K and Mdk10.0 dual-boot, and Windows refused to install. It did the formatting, and copied files over, etc., but when it said to remove the CD and reboot ... nothing. I said screw it, installed Mandrake only, and have been Windows free ever since.

As far as I can tell, sometimes Windows simply doesn't want to be on a given hard drive, and you just can't convince it to go.

Yes, but on a Windows forum you get people who truly know how Windows works just like people here know how Linux works.

But we say to put Windows questions here because members should be able to get answers to technical questions and many of us are Windows techs (it's where I started).

As a test, go to our sister site www.windowsquestions.org (genuine link)

I like the "body language" of this---ie we are here to help people---even if that means that we help someone re-install that othe OS if they get frustrated with Linux or discover it is not meeting their needs.

While I will never again purchase a MS product, I respect people that make that decision---and I don't mind helping.
I look forward to occassionally building systems for people and giving them a choice of OS. Even MORE, I look forward to Dell et al to do this---or maybe for Dell to sell the box, and Comp-USA to give the customer the choice.

99% of people hanging out in LQ (giving useful advice) probably started on Windows.

So, getting back to the original question... Would wiping the HDD completely and then booting to the XP disk solve the problem?

Potentially. But as we said before - since your friend is apparently *not* getting just a blue screen as Padma described, but an actual error message, knowing that error message would be a help to us in diagnosing it.

However, as long as your friend is planning on wiping the hard drive anyhow, doing it before the install isn't going to hurt anything