Putting Windows over Linux
 

Greetings all -

My wife got a laptop from a friend who was given a new one for Christmas. This laptop has Linux installed on it but she wants Windows since she doesn't know anything about Linux. I tried putting in Windows XP install CD and rebooting.

Laptop boots, gives me message "Press any key to boot from CD" and after pressing a key, system flashes screen saying "Windows is checking your system configuration" and then appears to proceed but nothing happens. It freezes at this point every time I reboot.

I looked online and found a few suggestions about using fdisk to delete partition and re-create as a W95 FAT32 partition but system freezes at exact same point on reboot.

Any suggestions on what I can try now? Appears I have hit a roadblock and my brain is stumped. I am a relative newbie to Linux myself and can usually get it working on fresh installs but not installing over.

Thanks!!

it should work test your cd for scratches

CD looks good. No scratches or dust or anything. I tried some more stuff with fdisk but still nothing.

missing something with fdisk?
 

Am I missing something with fdisk? Most of the online articles I am reading about it say when you use it you are formatting the hard drive. If this is correct how am I booting back up to the Linux OS? Am I forgetting something when trying to configure with fdisk?

im stumped

but give linux a try its really just second nature once your used to it

Do not delete Linux! Use vmware man. You can download vmware server for free from this link. ALso get the serial key from the same site by registering; it is free of cost. If your HardWare configuration is good enough, create a Virtual Machine and enjoy! I use vmware and run Windows XP on Debian GNU/Linux OS!

Well it is for my wife and she doesn't want to get too confused. So she wants the Linux off and XP back on. So I am trying to get it done for her. If she's not happy no one is happy.

Something new happened - on my last reboot the system would not come back up. It still gets to the hardware configuration screen and then freezes again! When I reboot without a CD it goes to a prompt saying grub> and boots no further.

I just got a haircut but this is making me pull out what's left of my hair! It is confusing!

If you are trying to format the entire Hard disk, it should be an easy go. But if you are trying to retain Linux and to install Windows on a separate partition, check for the Logical/Primary partition conflicts. I do not know if this is a kind of HW problem, as this is the first of its kind that I am coming across. Also try using a Linux CD/DVD to boot. If you are able to do so, your Windows CD has problems.

A good Windows XP Installation CD should not care what is currently on your hard drive or at least will be fully capable of re-formatting it and installing Windows. Your problem does sound like a problem with the CD or a hardware problem. Is this an official Microsoft install CD?

I suppose another option is to boot from a Live CD such as Knoppix and use it to check your hard drive. If you can boot from a Linux Live CD, that pretty much leaves the Windows CD as the most likely problem.

You can boot from a Linux live CD, delete the partitions on the hard disk, then re-boot with the Windows XP CD and run the installer.

what model and make of laptop?..

if it has a sata drive, xp wont boot from a standard disc...
you may have to make an xp install disc with the required drivers on it...

one app to use for this is nlite..
it will allow you to add sp2 then add the drivers for your laptop...
then crate and burn the iso...

this will give you a install disc for the laptop...

I've got the Linux CD that was used for the install (it came with the laptop). How would I go about using that to delete the partitions? I tried going through it myself and did not see anywhere to delete the existing partitions. I found the place during the install where it created the partitions for the OS but nowhere to delete existing partitions.

Thanks!

Didn't her friend read what OS was on the laptop before hand.

Anyway, it's not the friend's fault, most people are accustom to seeing windows on desktops and laptops preinstalled.

You can do so (to delete and create new partitions) by inserting a bootable Linux CD/DVD and making the necessary changes, using the GUI front end for the installation. After this, click next and wait for the partitions to be formatted etc. Then, just remove your CD/DVD from the drive. Do not allow the OS to be installed. I mean, you should be very quick to remove the CD/DVD before it shows the installation status.

This didn't work. I have the disc for Fedora 8 and I get to the point where it says "Formatting / File System" and after that it says "Initiating Install Process" so I removed the Fedora CD and put in my XP Pro CD and the system started the CD drive like it was reading the disk and then stopped and did nothing.

Is there a way to create a CD version of XP Pro boot disks? I am working with an old IBM ThinkPad and it does not have a floopy drive. So if there was a way I could create a boot disc on CD that I could try...it might help.

I personally advice you to use vmware. This is because you have had problems in installing (the freezing problem!). BTW, what is your HW configuration? Put RAMsize, CPU details, MotherBoard etc.

I got it!!!

I used the Linux CD to re-install Linux on half of the total hard drive. Once the free space was opened up I tried the XP disc again and it worked! I guess it was freezing up due to no available disc space for install.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Well, I do not think that the boot process used to hang because of the hard disk space. No matter how much space you are left with, the boot process should run successfully.

All you have to do is the following:

This is an easy way for you to fix your problem.
A: Download Ubuntu or PclinuxOS "Live CD" and boot from it.
Use the tool bar to find you hard drive tools and delete the all the partitions on hard drive.
Now shutdown and reboot with a Winblows CD that you have-and all is well.

Or: You could do what was suggested earlier and run vmware and install Winblows on that. That would be easy for the wife to use. All she do it turn that computer on and double click on the vmware icon.

Since you got the laptop for free you may want to max out the memory with an upgrade. Memory is really cheap these days.

windoze over Linux
 

Don't press any key, just wait until the setup program start

My 2 cents: I always use Norton Partition Magic to get rid of unwanted partitions. As far as I remember, the XP installation disk has a partitioning tool (fdisk) as well, but the last time I tried an XP install over Linux, it didn't even recognize the partitions, seeing the hard drive as one great big empty disk. Could there be something wrong with the laptop's hard drive? And to check if the problem is with the XP installation disk, borrow/download another one?

What is the make and model of the laptop. Some laptops have issues with windows xp. This was a common issue back when windows xp was released and may require that you do a bios upgrade to resolve the issue. Note that I used to work for MS doing XP support when it was first released and problems such as this were common. I do not believe that this issue has anything to do with Linux being on the laptop.

Take care tho with Bios upgrades there was a Dell one around out the that liked to brick laptops I think it was the A3 bios from them but I am not %100 sure.

Unless you are experienced Linux user you have to install Windows first then Linux will compile with a dual boot option. ie you will get the choice when you logon- but ONLY if you have first partitioned your drive by creating an adequate C drive (eg 20gB of 40gB drive altho I have used 5 on smaller drives and leave the rest blank do not make a virtual D drive or anything!. Linux then uses the rest or as much as you want it to.
If you want to remove the Linux installation- which I think you have to do if you want Windows on, simply because there is no "white space" on the drive for the MS partition- and the windows CD can't do it as part of a notmal installation- I suggest clearing up the disk first as follows
In BIOS make sure your boot option will look on the CD drive first before booting from your HD- this is the default situation for laptop anyway
You need to find a way to the command line or the DOS prompt, call it what you will. Then you should type fdisk and follow the instructions to delete all partitions on your HD. For Linux these are usually Ext3. As you know windows will create fat32.
(I assume your Windows installation disk is bootable ie it isn't an old one requiring a floppy! Some of these disks are for upgrade from earlier windows versions. If you are really stuck- and this may be the blind leading the blind and you take advice from another newbie at your peril- I could send you the contents of an MS-dos W98 boot floppy. It only gives you DOS options but might be enough to prepare your system for a clean install, burn that to a CD and use it to boot to prompt, probably D: then use d:\fdisk and follow the instruction to delete all the partitions on your HD)

Hopefully someone will have found you a simpler solution by now. Lots of luck!

Download a Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS "Live CD" and delete all partitions with that and then boot with your windows cd. Thats all you have to do.

Another thing people overlook is the partition id.

When you run fdisk from linux, you can see the partition id's of the partitions. By default, linux assigns an id of 83. You need to change the partition id to c (i.e W95 FAT32 (LBA). Press t for type, then enter c for the new partition. Next enter w to make the changes, then q to exit.

Now you can run the install cd, and Xp should recognize a windows partition.

When you failed to install XP, most likely the partition id was still at 83 which cause XP not understand the hard drive/partition. I had a similar experience with windows 98. Once I changed the id to c, the windows installation went smoothly.