So I’ve got two computers, one XP and one Linux. I get the bright idea of turning the Linux one into a backup XP box, but during installation I keep getting hard drive errors. I reinstalled Linux just fine, though, so now I’m weirded out. Does XP place special demands on hard drives than Linux wouldn’t?
Does XP place special demands on hard drives than Linux wouldn’t
Linux uses a different file systems from Windows. If you have just one disk, you ought to partion and then format each volume appropriately.
I’m not going for a dual boot, I’m going for a complete reinstall. I wiped the disk and during the format the XP installer starts complaining. I’m at a loss.
Did you use fdisk to get rid of the linux partitions?
This might help:
If what Tim suggested above doesn’t work, try something silly like
using a non-UDMA IDE cable while installing.
I used the XP install program’s formatting stage to delete the Linux partitions, would fdisk do any better?
It’s got two hard drives, so I think I’m going to make the slave the master and try it without the current master drive.
I’ve never tried doing it the way you did, but you ought to try manually using fdsik. Otherwise, I don’t think you’ll see the disk in windows.
Use a boot disk with fdisk added. Run fdisk. It only gives you 5 optoins. You want to delete any existing partitions (but they’re probably all gone), create a partition, then make the partition a “primary” partition. These are the general steps. This gets you one big partition. Next you have to reboot and then format.
I think you ought to be able to format from XP setup or from explorer (if you use the slave to install XP, and you do this stuff just so you can see the drive in windows again).