Well, the first thing you need to do is get XP installed. If you can get it to install on the full 120GHD you can indeed partition it later with a 3rd party app. After that, I know there are 3rd party "boot" apps that will let you do your Xandros thang. Let's get XP installed first and take it from there?

}---:)

well, installing on the full 120gb didn't work either, it hangs on it too. Sometime during the week I'll either put my video card in it that I have at home (at my moms house right now) or put in the other motherboard that has onboard video on it.

Asams...
Did you run the WinXP compatibility test from the install CD before you tried to install Win XP.

5 weeks ago Iwas running Win Xp Pro SP1 fine with no problem. Then I purchased Win XP Pro Sp2 and tried to install It, but it gave me lots of problems. Then I ran the WinXP compatibility test, and it said that something on my Video card was not compatible. I That was ATI Radeon 8500DV A-I-W. I also got only partways into the install.
After downloading the updated ATI catalyst drivers it worked fine.
I can imagine the 32 Meg ATI card being a possible problem.
I also have an older 64 meg ATI card, and it is totally incompatible with WinXP Pro.

can't the PM rescue disks reformat to FAT32?
if so, you could make a 8 gig (intially) for XP and FAT32
then play around with the rest later on.

Well I am also using 120gb hard drive.

I first created one single paritition, the whole 120gb. Of course its only 111gb really. ;)

But anyways I then installed windows xp and then after that I installed kandros. You can repaarititon your drive fine with many linux distros. I always use linux mandrake 10.

So now I have four parititions, one, and the very first for for winxp pro. sp2 and three for kandros. No problems at all.

And about ati drivers. How would that help? After all you format the drive and the drivers are gone for good until setup or you manually install them. And so far that has not happened yet.

Um dont have to have raid do u? That can cause problems. Might needs to push f6 at install or whatever it is, pretty sure its f6. Um maybe thats were you could install ati drivers if that is indeed the problem?

Yes, moen has a very good point. Ran across this myself before. If available try doing an install off WinXP without SP2 or does the copy your using only have SP1 on it? If you have available more than one copy of WinXP try a different disk, or try to install that copy on a different computer to rule out any problem with the disk itself.

Yes after moen pointed out that I remember this happening to one of my computers too. It had Windows XP SP1 installed. I formatted and tried installing Windows XP incl. SP2 and the installer hung just right there you described. It copied the files, restarts and attempts to boot for the first time. The computer hangs at the Windows XP boot screen.

I formatted again and installed Windows XP incl. SP1. Some PC Configurations don't seem to like XP SP2. I don't know which exact hardware is incompatible with SP2 but SP1.

Please try installing Windows XP incl. SP1 :)

Cheers,
McoreD

As WAR said...If you have raid, then there are several other problems that may occur. You have to hit F6 at just the right time, and if I remember correctly, you have about 2 seconds to do it. That was the first problem I had, and With my High Point accelerator card, I also had to hit F6 to install the special drivers.
Just another thing, do you know which optical drive is denotedthe 0-drive. Often that is the only one you can install from. I had that problem the very first time I tried to install WinXP.
I assume you did run the WinXP compatibility test before Win XP SP2.

well, the only disk i had here has sp2 on it, but at home i have an just the plain xp with no service packs so i will try it. i'll try getting the updated drivers for the video before installing without a service pack. i probably won't get around to messing with it today though since i'm not leaving here until about 1pm and it is a 2hour drive home, then i'm not sure how much i want to mess with it today. i might just get the drivers and my other disk ready to try either tomorrow or wednesday night and get back to ya'll.

and no I don't have raid setup. No I haven't run the compatibility test cause i didn't know there was such a thing. is it on the cd or where do I get it at?

moen, i only have 1 optical drive so that isn't the problem.

The compatibility test is one of the options shown as soon as you boot the Win Xp install CD.
It checks your system, all cards, drives, programs, drivers, etc.
It also gives you the choice of printing out the report which is usuallu 2+ pages