There is one more thing to do - set the boot flag on the partition that will have Windows XP. If we don't do this, the system may have trouble booting. This is done with the "a" command:
Command (m for help): a Partition number (1-3, default 4): 1 The bootable flag on partition 1 is enabled now.
We're mostly done with fdisk! Now we need to check the partition table for the last time with "p":
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type /dev/sda1 * 2048 209717247 209715200 100G 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT /dev/sda2 209717248 629147647 419430400 200G c W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/sda3 629147648 838862847 209715200 100G a6 OpenBSD
All good - let's save the partition table with "w" (which will delete everything on the disk). Before typing "w", make sure the partition setup is correct and that you backed up important data from your disk! I'm not responsible for any data loss from improperly following this post. If you don't want to use the new parttion table, type "q" to exit fdisk wihtout saving.
The partitions are not formatted yet. I'm going to format the NTFS and OpenBSD partitions with their respective operating systems, but I will format the FAT32 one in Linux as Windows refuses to format large partitions as FAT32 for some stupid reason. The command for this is:
# mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n "your partition label" /dev/sda2
Obviously, sda2 is my FAT32 partition - yours might be different (if unsure, check with "fdisk -l").
Now onto installing Windows XP onto one of those partitions!
Installing
We reboot out of the Linux ISO by typing "shutdown -r now" and put a Windows XP install CD in. When the computer says "Press any key to boot from CD....", press any key.
I set the BIOS in this PC to boot from CD as highest priority, some BIOSes might need you to manually select it from the boot menu (usually accsesed with F12, F11 or DEL).
SATA on this motherboard just works with the stock XP installation. However, most newer motherboards will refuse to boot the installer unless you put SATA drivers into the install image or set SATA in BIOS to compatibility mode instead of AHCI. Compatibility mode is the simplest solution, but your disks will be slower and installing SATA drivers post-install can be iffy. Drivers can be added to the installer with nLite. They can also be loaded from a floppy, but if you need SATA drivers, your PC most likely lacks a floppy drive.
If you need SATA drivers, you will know - the installer will either BSOD or fail to detect any disks.
After accepting the license with F8, we get to the partitioning screen:
(image)
Your partition screen likely won't have this many partitions - I had a lot of them on my second disk. Select the first partition on the correct disk with arrow keys and ENTER, then do a quick NTFS format. Then we select that partition for installing and let the installer copy files.
Installing, stage 2
After copying files, the system will reboot. Do not press any key when it asks to boot from CD - we want to boot from HDD/SSD this time.
The computer boots to a graphical install screen, which will set up for a while and then ask for keyboard settings, timezone, regional settings and the product key.
(image)
Then we get to the final OOBE - if your sound card is old enough to have builtin drivers in XP, title.wma will start playing. On this screen, we disable automatic updates, as I'll be installing the patches manually and create an user account.
And here's freshly installed Windows XP, Bliss wallpaper and all!
(image)
That's it for part 1 - in part 2 I'll be installing OpenBSD! This tutorial series won't cover post-installation stuff like drivers, only the initial installations and getting the systems working together.