I think that vmware “solution” is not relevant i this case, since you have to have a working winxp installation to start it under vmware.

The best practice, of coarse, is to install windows first; if you can go for removing Linux, do it and then install winxp on the first partition, and linux on some other; but before removing linux, uninstall the boot manager to restore the MBR and boot sector (lilo -u if you use lilo, something similar should exist for grub).

If you don’t want to erase linux installation, maybe you should copy it to another partition, restart with root device pointing to the new copy (e.g., linux root=/dev/hda7 at lilo boot prompt, or whatever necessary in grub). Then run fdisk to set the appropriate partion type to the old linux partition (I’d guess it is the first one), then uninstall the boot manager and try to install winxp.

Whether it installs or not, you need to start you linux from rescue cd with your new root partition (again, something like
resque root=/dev/hda7 at the bootloader prompt). Then reconfigure the boot manager to boot alternative OS’es (not forgetting to define the new linux root device so not to set it manually at every boot).

Hope this will help.

BR

Petko

I like to use GAG as a boot manager as I can always put it back after Windows overwrites the MBR and not have to re-install any OS. Find it at GAG.SOURCEFORGE.NET

Bob