[CentOS] Dual-booting CentOS and WinXP

[Ned Slider]

Sorin Srbu wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> You know how I asked about procedures to build a dual-boot system with
> CentOS and WinXP a while ago? Well, I I've begun with a test machine.
> 
> What I had from start was a working CentOS 5.3 32b system. What I did was to
> just add another empty drive configured as slave and then boot from the
> Windows install cd.
> 
> The most curious thing happened now, I get a blank screen after the Windows
> installer screen saying something about "Setting up install procedure..."
> just at the beginning. That is to say, this happens only if the hd with
> CentOS is connected to power. If I disconnect the power connector to the
> CentOS drive, the Windows installer happily goes on.
> 
> Is this to be expected, that Windows won't install if it sees a hd with
> another OS as master?
> 
> Thanks for any hints.
> 

It's a known issue - I've seen it affecting other distro's (Fedora in my 
case). It's a Windows XP thing, not specific to the distro, and only 
affects WinXP afaik (doesn't affect Win2K, couldn't care less about 
Vista). I first came across it trying to install WinXP on a system that 
had previously had Fedora on it and the installer hangs at a black 
screen. The "solution" is to do as you've done and disconnect the drive. 
If it's a single drive system, then install Windows first for dual 
booting, or if you just want to reinstall Windows over the top of a 
previous Linux installation then remove all Linux partitions with fdisk 
first.