I have only used Mepis Linux on my hard drive and wanted to install Windows XP. I deleted the partitions and formatted the drive and began to install Windows XP. The computer rebooted with an error. It states "Press any key to boot from CD.....Error loading operating system_" When I press a key, nothing happens? I was told that I might have a problem when I tried to load a Windows OS on the drive after loading Linux. Something about the boot file that Linux uses stays permanetly on the drive even after formatting? If someone would help me get around this problem, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

That probably means the cd is bad. Has nothing to do with the partitions

if the MBR is a bit fubar you might want to download Knoppix and use Knoppix to help recover. normally winXP is reallyl good about taking over the MBR and screwing up a linux install. if you were able to get past the blue section of the winXP install and then got this error then you might have an issue, but ifyou are not even getting to that point then you need to look at a few things:

1. double check that the bios is set to boot from CDROM as first boot.
2. test your winXP CD on an other computer to verify that it is still good.

I checked the installation CD and its still good. The computer is set to load the floppy and then the CD drive, so that shouldn't be a problem. Where's the problem?? I appreciate all the help.

did you have anything in the floppy drive?

worst case you can try grabbing an older win98SE boot floppy, make sure it has fdisk and format on it along with highmem. use fdisk to repartition the disk and then format /s/u and you should be set to retry and install XP.

Put your XP disc in and go into rescue mode and type fixmbr then try doing the install agian.

From the above statement, I suppose u press the key after the "Error loading operating system" msg appear. If that's true, of coz nothing will happen. Try to press a key right after u see the "Press any key to boot from CD"

As far as I know, you must install XP first, then only Linux.
*Just make sure you've left an unformatted partition for Linux installation later...

Hope this will help.. :-)

I got a Windows 98 startup disk and a command prompt. But, I wasn't able to use fdisk or format /s. So, I went ahead and reinstalled Mepis, and set aside a large chunk of the drive as free space. Then reinstalled Windows XP, and it seems to be working now, which is excellent!

When it boots up, it automatically loads Windows instead of Mepis. I thought since I reinstalled Mepis that I would have a dual boot system. Should I be able to reinstall Mepis again in the space that was there when I installed Windows XP, and have a dual boot OS?

thanks again for all the help!

you need to use the Mepis CD to fix the MBR. windows is being nasty to the MBR and taking it over completly.

as mentioned above the easy order is windows first, then linux.