hi!! i had XP and fedora Core linux 3 installed in my system.i wanted 2 delete linux for more disk space in windows(i had allocated a 10GB drive for linux),and also wanted 2 install xp freshly.actually i donno how 2 remove linux,so i went into administrative tools/computer management/storage/disk management,and deleted the two logical drives meant for linux(this i should'nt have done).now aftr i reboot n try installing xp frm the xp bootable cd,i get the usual message"setup is initializing configuration.." n then everything goes black.i feel that this thng happened as the MBR still has the boot loader of linux.the problem is that i cant proceed with my windows installation any further.pls help

Let's look at this in a logical fashion.

You should have trouble booting XP now, as you most likely deleted Grub's reference files on the Linux partition.

Even if the bootloader part of Fedora is still on the MBR, you should not have a problem re-installing XP, unless you actually messed up the Windows partition.

The black screen can happen for a variety or reasons. One problewm can be faulty hardware. The other is if you have sata drive(s) on your system, which XP needs the sata drivers (third party drivers) installed during the actuall installation process.

Do you have sata drives on your system?

I assume that you have a full installation CD of XP?

If so, you can rescue the Windows MBR Bootloader by going into recovery mode and restoring the MBR with the command fixboot and fixmbr in the recovery console.

Is there a reason that you want a fresh installation of XP, or do you just want to recover the current installation?

When you deleted the Linux partitions, did you resize the XP partition to take up the empty space?