I post here a warning to keep you out of trouble if you
borrow a windows-bound computer under construction
to tinker with rhel5 for a bit;  know that you may need to
do a  dd  to zero out the rhel5 before XP can install on it.
...Easy to do, but surprising that you should even have to.

This was a tedious situation to debug; I replaced every part
in the computer before guessing the hard disk {or prior disk
contents}as the culprit.  I could hardly believe it,
and swapped a factory-fresh HD of the same
model back into play to confirm it was indeed the case.

I'd built up a new computer, intending to load xp/pro sp2,
but thought I'd play around with rhel5 Server for a few
days first.  To my surprise, the XP install seemed unable
to cope with the rhel, and to get past this I had to boot up
in RedHat and  dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sda   bs=1024k count=100
{ I did it in runlevel 1 after umounting /boot and /, but doubt this
is required.  /dev/sda because this MSI   PM8PM-V board
and 80 gig WD WD800JD disk treat sata as sda instead of hda
under linux.}  I had put the grub loader in sda instead of in sda1.
Oh, and this was a 3ghz P4 model 631 cpu...

The last message XP install prints before black screen is
"Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..."

Using a pci vga card didn't help. The keyboard numlock/caps lock
leds still toggled ok after the problem kicked in, and control-alt-delete
caused a normal reboot, so the xp install was only 'mostly dead'...  :-)

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

On Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:15:31 -0600, Frank Winans wrote:

> I post here a warning to keep you out of trouble if you borrow a
> windows-bound computer under construction to tinker with rhel5 for a
> bit;  know that you may need to do a  dd  to zero out the rhel5 before
> XP can install on it. ...Easy to do, but surprising that you should even
> have to.

Windows disk partitioning during install is notorious for assuming the
only OS that will ever be installed on any hard drive will be Windows.

Use fdisk to completely destroy and recreate the partition table of any
drive you intend to install Windows on if it's ever had anything but
Windows on it.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Frank Winans" <fwinans@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:139596g6huer8c8@corp.supernews.com...
>I post here a warning to keep you out of trouble if you
> borrow a windows-bound computer under construction
> to tinker with rhel5 for a bit;  know that you may need to
> do a  dd  to zero out the rhel5 before XP can install on it.
> ...Easy to do, but surprising that you should even have to.
>
> This was a tedious situation to debug; I replaced every part
> in the computer before guessing the hard disk {or prior disk
> contents}as the culprit.  I could hardly believe it,
> and swapped a factory-fresh HD of the same
> model back into play to confirm it was indeed the case.
>

All you really needed to do is to repartition the HDD during installation of
XP , which is what would be the normal thing to do when you go to change and
install another OS on a HDD.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
True Multitasking is having three computers and a chair with wheels.


Sandgroper
------------------------------------
Remove KNICKERS to Email
steveray@KNICKERSiinet.net.au

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Frank Winans wrote:
> I post here a warning to keep you out of trouble if you
> borrow a windows-bound computer under construction
> to tinker with rhel5 for a bit;  know that you may need to
> do a  dd  to zero out the rhel5 before XP can install on it.
> ...Easy to do, but surprising that you should even have to.
>
> This was a tedious situation to debug; I replaced every part
> in the computer before guessing the hard disk {or prior disk
> contents}as the culprit.  I could hardly believe it,
> and swapped a factory-fresh HD of the same
> model back into play to confirm it was indeed the case.
>
> I'd built up a new computer, intending to load xp/pro sp2,
> but thought I'd play around with rhel5 Server for a few
> days first.  To my surprise, the XP install seemed unable
> to cope with the rhel, and to get past this I had to boot up
> in RedHat and  dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sda   bs=1024k count=100
> { I did it in runlevel 1 after umounting /boot and /, but doubt this
> is required.  /dev/sda because this MSI   PM8PM-V board
> and 80 gig WD WD800JD disk treat sata as sda instead of hda
> under linux.}  I had put the grub loader in sda instead of in sda1.
> Oh, and this was a 3ghz P4 model 631 cpu...
>
> The last message XP install prints before black screen is
> "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..."
>
> Using a pci vga card didn't help. The keyboard numlock/caps lock
> leds still toggled ok after the problem kicked in, and control-alt-delete
> caused a normal reboot, so the xp install was only 'mostly dead'...  :-)
>
>
>
Frank,


This is a 'classic' problem that Windows cannot handle a linux partition
table and a Linux mbr.

In the past with RH 7.3 I hit this problem already.

If you do a final reboot of Linux do a

fdisk /dev/sda
#   and remove all partitions

dd  if=/dev/zero  of=/dev/sda bs=512k count=1
# clear mbr

Should work also.


Best regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Sandgroper" wrote
>
> "Frank Winans" wrote 
>
> All you really needed to do is to repartition the HDD during installation 
of
> XP , which is what would be the normal thing to do when you go to change a
nd
> install another OS on a HDD.
>
Yes, that was my original desire, to nuke all disk contents from inside XP i
nstall.
I couldn't do so because  XP install  croaked pretty much first thing. And, 
I was
ignorant that XP could be so 'allergic' to the linux.  Other posters indicat
e this is
a well-known problem, so maybe I should have googled a bit before making the
screws fly so fast...

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Frank Winans wrote:
> "Sandgroper" wrote
> 
>
> Yes, that was my original desire, to nuke all disk contents from inside XP
 install.
> I couldn't do so because  XP install  croaked pretty much first thing. And
, I was
> ignorant that XP could be so 'allergic' to the linux.  Other posters indic
ate this is
> a well-known problem, so maybe I should have googled a bit before making t
he
> screws fly so fast...
>
>
Frank,


Now that you are so skilled with your skrewdriver, you may want to
install two disks and build a dual boot system ;-).


Best regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

"Frank Winans" <fwinans@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:139783tug4bv23@corp.supernews.com...
> "Sandgroper" wrote 
> Yes, that was my original desire, to nuke all disk contents from inside XP
> install.
> I couldn't do so because  XP install  croaked pretty much first thing.
> And, I was
> ignorant that XP could be so 'allergic' to the linux.  Other posters
> indicate this is
> a well-known problem, so maybe I should have googled a bit before making
> the
> screws fly so fast...

You misunderstood me , I mean , BOOT UP the machine using  the XP  DVD and
then start the installation process and re--partition the HDD during the
install process.
You can't just install XP over the top rhel5 while it's running.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------
True Multitasking is having three computers and a chair with wheels.


Sandgroper
------------------------------------
Remove KNICKERS to Email
steveray@KNICKERSiinet.net.au

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

Sandgroper wrote:
> "Frank Winans" <fwinans@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> news:139783tug4bv23@corp.supernews.com...
> 
>
>
> You misunderstood me , I mean , BOOT UP the machine using  the XP  DVD and
> then start the installation process and re--partition the HDD during the
> install process.
> You can't just install XP over the top rhel5 while it's running.
>
Sandgroper,


Frank probably refers to my remark that the WinXP installer is not able
to remove Linux partitions.

Atleast Win9x was not able to do so. Installing WinXP over Linux
partitiontable I have not tried, but I am afraid it has not changed since.


Best regards,


Jan Gerrit Kootstra

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]

> Frank probably refers to my remark that the WinXP installer is not able
> to remove Linux partitions.
>
> Atleast Win9x was not able to do so. Installing WinXP over Linux
> partitiontable I have not tried, but I am afraid it has not changed since.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
> Jan Gerrit Kootstra
I do not know for sure if XP can remove linux partitions,
at least in an installation environment,
because I am unable to get the XP install media to boot
far enough to try doing it that way.

I'm just so happy we almost never use windows as a server!  We've got
_gobs_ of other OS's around the shop to do this disk-sanitizing with.
Back in win9x days I used to do stuff like this in hex mode of Norton
Utilities' program "DISKEDIT.EXE", if a sco/linux    dd   command was
too hard to scrounge up for some reason or other...  But a dos panic
floppy just doesn't have the smarts to handle modern computer gear,
and I've not had the incentive to whip up a cdrom to fill a similar role.

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]