help me install windows xp after removing fedora!!!

[rachitpant]

i had installed fedora 7 on my pc as a single os .
now i want to go back to windows xp as the only os on my pc .


i poped in windows cd ,
pressed enter on " press any key to boot from cd "
then came " setup is inspecting ur hardware cnfig "
and pc got stuck in a black screen , nothing happened , though the hdd LED was running .

i gooogled to find some solution , one guy has exactly same problems , only diff tht he wanted to install windows after removing fedora 4 .
i tried the solution that said to use the following commands

" linux rescue
chroot /mnt/sysimage
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs =521 count=1
then press ctrl+d two times to restart "

still could not install windows xp

i am not sure if wat i did was wat tht guy told

in the startup menu , i choose system rescue ,
i could see something like "changing root to /mnt/sysimage"

so i assumed first two steps were over , so i typed only with the last step

( i still gave the first step a try and entered "linux rescue" on the #prompt , but it said unknown command )


to be simple i only used the following command

dd if........ ( as above )

some thing came like tranferring these many bytes form here to here ...
i pressed ctrl + d two times and restarted , but could not still install windws

thnks for having patience to read all tht.
i am totally naive , and ordinary end user , who knows noting of mbr ,linux , /mnt chroot and all that .
so it would be better if u can suggest some solution in simple step by step manner .

the last thing i have decided is to take my hdd to friends house and partition and format it using partition magic pro .
not sure if even tht would work

i know i m in a big mess

[dheeraj_kumar]

I'm no linux expert, but you could do what you said... that would surely work.

take my hdd to friends house and partition and format it using partition magic pro .

[Amir.php]

Here is same problem and solution like you:

http://www.compatdb.org/support/topi...indows_xp.html

[rachitpant]

i had seen that before
thts too confusing

anyways i have managed to install windows xp

i used a utility called "partition logic"
search for it ( listed among the top 100 tech products by pc world )

i partitioned using this utility ( it actually runs on top of a small os ) , u have to burn its image on a cd
and then tried installing windows , everything went fine ,
windows copied its setup files to pc and when it should have begun actual installation , it just couldnt boot .

solution to this is -:
boot again using partition logic ,
but dont make partition but write mbr
and proceed with installation

so here i m telling solution to my own problem