[Ubuntu Chicago] Cannot install XP (yeah yeah, I know)

[Brian Green]

>
> |
> | On Dec 10, 2007 4:06 PM, Patrick Green <patlgreen at gmail.com> wrote:
> | > Okay...I know.  Here is the story.  One student at CLC tool the Linux
> | > challenge since he does not like Vista.  So I removed Vista and
> Installed
> | > Gutsy.  Well, he is not a big fan of that either.  So he goes to Wal
> Mart
> | > and buys a copy of XP Pro.  Every time he tries to install it on his
> Sony
> | > Laptop it tells him the hard drive cannot be found.  So I take it home
> | > with me and I run gparted to delete the partitions.  I get the same
> | > error. Okay...fine...run gparted again and partition as a
> FAT32....still
> | > no joy. So I go into the R option of XP for repair and enter fixmbr.
>  And
> | > still....nothing.   Now, I know BIOS recoignizes the hard drive and I
> can
> | > get into it all day long with gparted or..welll...any live CD.  What
> am I
> | > missing here?
> | >
> | > End of the day I wish he liked the Ubuntu, but this is what he wants
> and
> | > I am trying to help facilitate it...ideas?  BTW, Sony VAIO with Duo
> | > Centrino 4GB RAM...PCG-384L is the Sony model number.
>
> If he has one of those things that take that 2.5" disk, I think it is
> called a
> floppy drive :p  You can boot a win98 boot disk, and then format the mbr.
> Another thing could be that his drive is part of a funky sata/ide card
> that
> isn't recognized by XP w/o pressing F6 and installing the device drivers
> for
> it before you try to install XP.
>

I had this thought too.  Just as an aside, I've used the free app nlite  (
http://www.nliteos.com ) to slipstream such drivers when I encountered that
situation and the machine didn't have a floppy drive.  Nifty app, can do
much more as well.

Brian Green
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