Hello everybody,

I'm having trouble installing XP due to the fact lilo is wrote to the MBR already, I've partitioned my hard drive with fdisk:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000088a2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 1048578047 524288000 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 1048578048 1384122367 167772160 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 * 1384122368 1698695167 157286400 7 HPFS/NTF/exFAT

also sdb3 contains the NTFS filesystem (via mkntfs)

The problem is, as many of you know, Windows wants to write to the MBR first. I don't need to hear it's
easier to re-install, I need a solution. Any and all help will be appreciated.

So, let windoze install itself to the mbr, after xp installs, run a linux rescue disk and reinstall lilo to the mbr.

Why do you want xp anyway?

First off "Windoze" will not allow this, Secondly I need it for a new job working with the .NET framework, VB, and C#.
Otherwise I wouldn't be installing it. Monodevelop is crashing on start-up, apparently the bug is common.

If you have a slackware CD or setup a USB boot for linux via flash drive, you can use it to boot your root partition. Once you are back in Linux, just re-run lilo after you adjusted lilo.conf to boot a windows OS as well.

Windows will not allow... what? even XP will overwrite the mbr, it does not ask, it will do it during install but it does want it's own partition.

As for running .net to do VB, just use virtual box or kvm. No real need for a full windows install unless you need 3d graphics, and even then virtualbox does some of it.

Thanks for the replies. I understand what your both saying. The problem is I cannot even install Windows on the NTFS parition with my current configuration.
If I could get it installed, then I could edit my boot configuration, quite a few different ways.

WhiteWolf1776,

I've never ran into this problem before, XP WILL NOT OVERWRITE MBR, I've deleted the partitions I've created multiple times,
and wrote new ones using the XP install disc, and still it argues about the MBR. I have tried everything Windows Setup will
allow.

I'm thinking windows wants to write / install it's primary boot on /dev/sda... not b... what's your sda disk doing?

what is the reason xp is giving for not wanting to write to the MBR.

one of the problems I had with installing windows is that it usually needed to be close to first partitions to be installed on your system. My configuration for the hard drive is usually a small partition for /boot, then the partition needed for windows, then everything else linux.

In your case, you have windows as the last partition. Could that be the problem?

Anybody else know if windows needs to be within the first 2GB or perhaps its more about cylinders on the disk

You are lucky, it always overwrote the MBR after XP was installed for me . Usually I installed Linux first, then XP, then had to use the linux boot disk to restore the MBR with lilo. I installed linux first only to get the partitions setup the way I wanted and I'm not familiar enough if windows would let me setup partitions because it didn't recognize linux anyways.

Install XP first. Use it to partition the disk, leaving empty space for your Linux installation. Once XP is installed, THEN boot from your Linux CD/DVD (whathaveyou) and do your Linux installation. When you run lilo, setup your windows partition and then your Linux boot partition. You can let lilo write the information to the MBR.
Worked everytime I've tried it.

How about installing windows XP in a virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox)? That way you won't have to worry about lilo or the MBR. Just a thought...

Scratch my advice, I forgot you needed an installation to use the recovery console. Sorry.

That really is weird. I've never had xp complain about the MBR even on a disk where it was unwritable.

If I've installed XP once, I've installed it a 100 times, and it has always trashed any other OS it finds on the HD, that is, it overwrites the MBR as it wants (thinks it needs?) to be the only OS on the hard drive.
As I've said before, install XP first, then Linux.