I had bought a laptop with the Linspire on it and I would like to put the Win XP in a dual Boot but I'm lost. I've been told that it is posible and I've been looking everywhere but all I can find is for win first then linex second. Please give any advice that can be spared?

Keep the Linspire and forget w.... hehe ok

I would format the drive how big is it?

Window$ first....

Example 120GB drive

40GB to windows XP

Rest goes to Linux Don't partition it yet, just leave it unformatted.

Then Linux.

It's difficult, because Windows needs to be persuaded that it's on the primary partition.

You'll need to create a partition on the drive for windows, then install a bootloader, i would imagine. I was trying to do that on my desktop before the hard drive died (unrelated to the dual boot issue, PSU was crap).

If I understand what you said, you are trying to install windows second. This is not particularly difficult, the only problem is, windows will attempt to install itself to the first partition on your drive and then overwrite you MBR. Basically, ensure that windows installs to the partition you want it to. I would suggest formatting it as FAT32, because then linux will be able to read and write from it. Also, make sure you have a rescue CD on hand, because if windows is installed, you MBR will be overwritten, and window's bootload expects windows to be at the first partition. This means that GRUB will be broken, and windows will try to boot itself off a partition that won't work. The rescue CD will allow you to reinstall GRUB once it is overwritten

i would format and install xp then go back and reinstall linspire. i realize this is alot of work but it ensures everything would comply with window's particulairties.