Hi,

I've a machine which is installed Mandrake 10 using a hard disk cloning method. It's entire hard dish was in ext format. I wanted to make it dual boot, so I format using fdisk and tried to install Windows XP using a CD.
Windows setup fails saying it is unable to find a windows compatible partition in the disk even though I create a partition using Windows setup. If I delete all the linux partitions, I can install windows without a problem. Any idea???

Thanks.
Asanka.

"'ve a machine which is installed Mandrake 10 using a hard disk cloning method. "

Can you explain this a little more? What do you mean by a hard disk cloning method?

"I wanted to make it dual boot, so I format using fdisk and tried to install Windows XP using a CD. "

Please explain how you were going to try and make it dual boot. Generally, you would install Windows first, then Linux, so that Grub can configure the system for dual booting.

When you say fdisk, are you speaking of fdisk by way of Linux, or the Windows fdisk utility? Windows setup can't read or detect Linux partitions, so this is the reason for the message that you got when trying to install Windows.

What I meant as the cloning method is, it has been installed using an disk imaging tool named 'g4u' using a copy of a installed machine (linke Norton Ghost).I hope it is clear.
All the partitions were in ext3 format. So using a Windows XP cd , I created a partition using the windows setup. It failed and then i tried using fdisk with a Windows 98 CD. but the problem remains,its same even format the mbr.

So thats the situation. I'm trying to keep my mandrake installation and get Windows installed. If i delete linux partitions, Windows can be installed without a problem.


Thanks

OK, so the issue is that the whole hard drive is cloned with G4U in Linux. So, there is no free space on the target drive?

Once again, Windows does not like to be put at the end of the drive. It also will not format empty space, at least not easily without some work.

To see how complex this can be see this article, as well as this one.

You do realize that if you install Windows that the MBR will be overwritten and you will have to re-install grub? You need to have a way to do this.

Then you would need to alter Grub to be able to boot Windows, or use the Boot.ini method and make some changes to get both operating systems to dual boot.

I will assume that you don't have the Mandrake installation disks, or do you? If you do, why not;

1. Delete the Linux partitions.

2. Format the drive with one partition for Windows and free space for Linux. Use a Knoppix CD for this purpose (one fat32 the rest empty space for Linux).

3. Install windows.

4. Install Mandrake from the installation disks, using the free space at the ned of the drive.

Are you doing this on a system with two hard drives, or did you clone the drive and place it in the target system?