How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

[soul]

Newbie attack!

Well, i installed kubuntu just to get
a look at it, and now i can't install xp back (I completely erased xp and changed it with kubuntu). Xp setup doesn't recognize any hard drives. All help is welcome! Stupid me.

Thanks.

[Kubuntuuser]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

Well.....If you have your reinstall cd for Xp , throw it in thw cdrom and reboot the machine. When it starts booting up hit F2 or F12 to change the boot order from harddrive to CD.Hope that works for ya

[soul]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

Well, i booted already but it was no help. I selected the option - Install a new version of windows xp, or smth like that. Then it gave me a list of 4 of partitions and drives - and all 4 said smth like: No drive or partition. Then it had some options do delete the drive or choose a drive and as soon as i clicked something a blue screen appeared and restarted.

Hope u understand

[hlfrk414]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

Well, i booted already but it was no help. I selected the option - Install a new version of windows xp, or smth like that. Then it gave me a list of 4 of partitions and drives - and all 4 said smth like: No drive or partition. Then it had some options do delete the drive or choose a drive and as soon as i clicked something a blue screen appeared and restarted.

Hope u understand

That's ... odd. I'm guessing you don't want to save any data on your hard drive? Then do this.

Stick in your live cd of Kubuntu and boot from the cd. When its done, look for the program GParted in the applications menu. Should be under system. Start it up, and delete all the linux partitions you don't want (which is probably all of them,) Make sure you want to install windows before doing this, because if your windows CD is scratched and it was the problem, you'll be screwed. You'd have to get another windows CD or use kubuntu in the meantime.

[void]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

Well, i booted already but it was no help. I selected the option - Install a new version of windows xp, or smth like that. Then it gave me a list of 4 of partitions and drives - and all 4 said smth like: No drive or partition. Then it had some options do delete the drive or choose a drive and as soon as i clicked something a blue screen appeared and restarted.

Hope u understand

I think I understand. This is simply a case of Microsoft's installer putting on blinders and deliberately refusing to recognise existing partitions. It only sees NTFS or FAT32 partitions, and if you have none of those, it will throw tantrums.
You can create an NTFS partition through Kubuntu using a program called "QtParted" (I'm not sure what the package name would be for Kubuntu; I'm new to this distro myself). Once you have created an adequately sized NTFS partition, XP should be able to see it and give you an option to install XP onto it. I say "should" because nothing is guaranteed with this kind of software. Things can and do go wrong, so I strongly recommend you backup your important data first.

EDIT: I believe the XP installer detects raw partitions as well, so hlfrk414's method might also work.

[soul]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

Well, i booted already but it was no help. I selected the option - Install a new version of windows xp, or smth like that. Then it gave me a list of 4 of partitions and drives - and all 4 said smth like: No drive or partition. Then it had some options do delete the drive or choose a drive and as soon as i clicked something a blue screen appeared and restarted.

Hope u understand

That's ... odd. I'm guessing you don't want to save any data on your hard drive? Then do this.

Stick in your live cd of Kubuntu and boot from the cd. When its done, look for the program GParted in the applications menu. Should be under system. Start it up, and delete all the linux partitions you don't want (which is probably all of them,) Make sure you want to install windows before doing this, because if your windows CD is scratched and it was the problem, you'll be screwed. You'd have to get another windows CD or use kubuntu in the meantime.

I tried this and I had 70gb partition of 160gb harddrive that was NTFS, the other was linux. And i couldn't delete the linux patition, said it was mounted.
The i checked in bios and bios didn't auto-detect any hard-drives at all. And xp boot cd said the same thing.


I added two pictures, one from the setup, and the other is the werror message i receive when i clicked D for deleta or Enter for the selected partition.

[hlfrk414]

Re: How do i siwtch from kubuntu to xp?

I tried this and I had 70gb partition of 160gb harddrive that was NTFS, the other was linux. And i couldn't delete the linux patition, said it was mounted.
The i checked in bios and bios didn't auto-detect any hard-drives at all. And xp boot cd said the same thing.


I added two pictures, one from the setup, and the other is the werror message i receive when i clicked D for deleta or Enter for the selected partition.

I have a couple questions for you.
First, is the NTFS partition first in the list, or is the linux partiton first?
Second, do you have any data on that NTFS partition that you want to save?

If you DON'T want to save anything on the NTFS drive, do this:

Start up GParted from the live CD again.
This time, right click each partition (that has a "lock" symbol) , and click "unmount"
Now you can delete them and then apply changes.

If you DO want to save your NTFS partition, do this:

Same as above, but only right click and unmount the linux partition. Now you can delete it and apply changes.

Just warning you, if your NTFS partition is second on the list, and you DO want to keep it, this might not work. Just warning you.

If the linux partition is first, you could try deleting it first, then move the NTFS partiton. You do so by right clicking the NTFS partiton, and selecting resize/move. Move it, then apply changes.