OFF-TOPIC: Fedora 7 already installed, can't install XP on empty partition

[Robert L Cochran]

Aaron Konstam wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-08-10 at 18:07 -0300, André Costa wrote:
>   
[much snippage]

>> I just bought a shiny new Core 2 Duo machine (Intel DG33BU mobo), with
>> a nice 250G SATA disk. Fedora 7 installation went surprisingly well
>> (and fast), only problem was that onboard NIC was not recognized, but
>> upgrading the kernel offline fixed this. Everything is amazingly fast
>> =)
>>
>> BUT... I need this machine to dual-boot to Windows XP (still addicted
>> to some Windows-only games =( ). XP setup CD hangs just after showing
>> "examining hardware configuration" or something like that. It doesn't
>> really hangs, it just switches to a blank screen and sits there
>> forever (I already left it there for more than 15min to no avail).
>> Keyboard is responsive and HD led stays on. CTRL+ALT+DEL reboots as
>> expected.
>>     
[snippage]

It is true that it is better to install XP first. I have had cases like
> yours. Did you create a partition for XP? One can not tell from your 
> fdisk -l output. If not you are lost.
>
> However, If there is such a partition. make it type 7 with fdisk. Then
> retry your XP install.
>   

I'm doing a variation of what Andre did. I replaced a crashed hard drive 
on a computer. Until I can find the restore CD to restore Windows XP, I 
want to install Fedora 7 first just to test things out a bit and shake 
the system down for other defects. It is still important that I be able 
to install Windows XP but that will have to wait for a few days at 
least. So here is what I did:

Created a Linux partition /dev/sda4 of partition type 83 from cylinder 
26901 to 30401. This was my first step. I thought if I did this, the 
anaconda installer for Fedora 7 would see my handiwork and not disturb 
cylinders 1 through 26900. How wrong I was.

Created a large NTFS partition /dev/sda1 (of partition type 87, not type 
7) using the FDISK that is on the Fedora 7 DVD. This partition is from 
cylinders 1 to 26900.

Wrote the partition table change to disk, then started the Fedora 7 
installation. Now results are much better. The installer did change the 
Linux partition number from /dev/sda4 to /dev/sda3, but it looks okay. 
And the installation is pretty fast too even on a system with only 256 
Mb of RAM. Thank heavens for a reasonably quick drive with an 8 Mb cache.

Question: do my actions make sense? Will I be able to install Windows XP 
without a problem considering I have an NTFS partition type of 87? Or 
should I change this (post-Fedora install) to partition type 7?

Thanks

Bob Cochran