No NTFS partition

[peahouse05]

Hello All
Installed Linux Mint 12 on my Christmas present - 500GB Sata 2.5" HDD but had intended to dual boot with XP so I could still use Outlook Express, unfortunately well in wine on Boxing Day I allowed it to occupy the whole volume so I do not have a NTFS partition on which to install XP or access to the drive in Windows to format the drive.
Looked at a couple of Linux forums and was advised to burn a disk with gparted - did this from the website and from the Mint installation but neither will boot. The boot sequence is set to the internal optical drive and with either disk the drive sounds like it is trying to boot but eventually the Mint on the HDD boots.
Most grateful for any advice
peahouse05

 

[Abarbarian]

Easy way.

Start again. Reformat the disk with partitions for XP and Mint. Install XP first then Mint.

Harder way.

Answer loads of questions like,

What program did you burn the cd with ?

Where did you put Grub ?

It really would be easier to start again.

 

[peahouse05]

Thanks Abarbarian
Have tried a clean install XP on the drive but 'Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer'. I think this is my big mistake in allowing Linux Mint to take over the whole drive so there is no Windows boot sector.
I have a spare XP licence and will now try a Windows 7 disk but I am wary because I understand that you cannot revert to XP on a new HDD and both my Windows 7 licences are in use.
Cheers
peahouse05

 

[Abarbarian]

You either need GParted or Parted Magic burned to a cd. If burning one you need to make sure that you are burning a bootable .iso image, thats a "bootable" your software should have some info on how to do this.

Then after booting into the live distro and starting gparted delete all partitions on your hdd.

Create a NTFS as the first partition and make sure you have the "boot" flag enabled.

Create your GNU/Linux partitions.

Install XP then Mint. Play happily ever after.

GParted Manual http://gparted.sourceforge.net/disp...al#gparted-fix-operating-system-boot-problems

You may have a corrupted MBR and you may be able to use this fix

http://gparted.org/faq.php

[URL="http://gparted.org/faq.php#faq-16"]16

: What are the commands for repairing Windows XP boot problems? The following commands are entered at the command line when using the Recovery Console from the Windows XP installation disk.

To repair the Master Boot Record of the boot disk:
fixmbr

To write a new partition boot sector to the system partition:
fixboot

To rebuild the boot.ini configuration file:
bootcfg /rebuild

For more details refer to the following links:

[/URL]

Fixmbr, Fixboot, Bootcfg

Though I suspect it may not work as you have installed Mint. However you may be able to run those commands from the command line as you try the XP disc.
I'd try the first suggestion I made.

Good luck and don't forget how easy installing GNU/Linux is a s opposed to Windows and you'll soon be a happy penguin.

 

[peahouse05]

Hi Abarbarian
Many thanks for your replies.
Found the reason why my downlaoded GParted burnt to DVD did not work was that the SATA data plug to the DVD ROM drive was at a slight angle to the connector. When I reseated the plug I had a bootable GParted disk. Now have a NTFS partition on 500GB HDD and thanks to your help was able to manipulate the partitions to four approx 120GB with an XP and Linux Mint installation to dual-boot.
Kind Regards
peahouse05

 

[Abarbarian]

Glad you got sorted. You'll be able to give flops a few minty tips soon.