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Dual boot attempt, grub error 13.

Hello, I'm a Linux vet. and have managed dual booting before.
This time I made the attempt to install Windows Xp after Gentoo.
To do this I had to first delete the partition table to overcome
Windows' Linux safeguards, and then rewrite it the same after
the installation was complete.
When all was done and my original MBR was replaced, Grub gives me
Error 13 when trying to boot into Windows, but I can successfully
boot into Linux. If I delete the partition table again and create
only the windows partition, and replace the MBR with that installed
by windows xp, I can boot into it.
The only problem that I can think of causing this is that the windows
partition is not the first one, or possible the new partition are
slightly off what they should be.

also,when I write the partition table to be this:

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1  *          1          12      96358+  83  Linux

/dev/hda2              13        2444    19535040  83  Linux

/dev/hda3            2445        9605    57520732+  7  HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda4            9606        9729      996030  82  Linux swap / Solaris

it eventually turn in to this without warnings: (I have no explanation of how)

Code:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1              1          12      96358+  83  Linux

/dev/hda2              13        2444    19535040  83  Linux

/dev/hda3            2445        9605    57520732+  5  Extended

/dev/hda4            9606        9729      996030  82  Linux swap / Solaris

/dev/hda5  ?      16022      121966  850995205  72  Unknown

Any help, before I attempt a full partition reorder, would be much appreciated.
-Ayron

Why don't u just installed XP first and Linux after ?

At the time I didn't want to delete my Linux installation, just so I could run a few programs or games. Currently what I would do is just back up the entire partitions then rewrite the partition table in a more stable way. But that would take some down time I don't really care to have. I thought that since both partitions seem to be accessible one way or the other, that there might be some simple fix to the problem. Also I am just curious.

Can't you dd the gentoo partition off to somewhere else and dd it back after the windows install?

This seemed to be a quicker solution at the time, but that is what I may do now. But once again, I am aware of my alternatives, i was just wondering why this didn't work. Also my external hard drive is quite full, which means i would have to sacrifice data, or move content from the ex-hd to my hd then back again, then back again when done. Which I just found to be inconvenient.

Did you do the partitioning with Partition Manager by any chance ???.
Doing all the partitioning with gparted is fine - I do it all the time. Same with adding XP to a Linux box. Only thing that needs to be fixed is the bootloader.

Don't know why all the grief.

Originally I used cfdisk, then switched to fdisk, after I started noticing a discrepancy in what I was writing and what was being written to the table. I believe this was because of cfdisk forcing partition to end on the end of a cylinder, which is strange because I was only recreating what I had originally created with cfdisk.
The boot loader was never a problem, as I just backed up what I had with dd. As well as the one installed by windows.

It seem to me that I may have, at some point, shifted the partitions by accident, and screwed up the table itself (If that is at all possible). And today I will just reinstall.

I have done something similar to this before without any problems, which is why I am confused about the problem now, but I suppose I will just give up.