Installing WinXP in a SuSE 9.0 enviroment (dual boot)
 

Hi I just migrated from windows to linux (Suse 9.0) but unfortunatly I , a little to late, find that i still need a winXP instalation on my machine. I have googled the topic and found plenty of guides on how to install Suse in a XP enviroment but none for the reverse.

I used the partition maneger in 'Yast' to create a fat32 partition hoping i could get winxp to install when i use fdisk as root it gives me the following:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 131 1052226 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda2 * 132 7362 58083007+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 * 7363 14592 58074975 c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

I would like to install WinXP on /dev/hda3.

When i boot from winXP cd i get the unmountable_boot_volume BSOD

I would much appreciate any info you guys have

kbyethx...... ;)

Remove the bootable flag from the Linux partition, only one partition should be set to active.
You can either reinstall GRUB back into the MBR (using rescue mode or whatever) after XP is installed, or install it to the partition bootsector on hda2 now and reset it to active afterwards.
In both cases you'll need to add an entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst in order to load your winxp, and it should look something like

hi fubzot,

i too got the same problem with Red hat & WinXP. What I did was removed the entire NON-LINUX partitions from linux shell prompt using fdisk. Then I booted with WinXP CD. WinXP created new partition at the free space.

all the best
swamytk

KaruppuSwamy.T has the right idea.
If you boot from the WINXP CD, it will allow you to create a partition before installing. Normally anyway.

Let us know if it worked.