Building a new box for an upcoming lan party, I ran into a problem where I couldn't get very far into the Windows installation because of a loop in the setup process.
The installer asks me to select or create and select a partition on which to install. I do so, only to be taken to a page that says that the selected partition is not compatible with Windows XP.
Thinking I'm outsmarting the computer, I use a Linux boot disk to create and format a partition with NTFS, then reboot to XP and try to use this partition again... with the same results.
At this point, I should mention that the new box has a 160g 7200 rpm sata drive and a 250g ide drive. And that the 250g ide drive was showing up first in the list of drives.
After stumbling upon the exact Google search term, I learned that Windows XP in a little finicky about the drive to install upon appearing first in the list of drives. Since my 250g drive was appearing first, Microsoft didn't like that.
So I unplugged the 250g ide drive and tried again, but then my CD, which was a slave wasn't recognized since there was no longer a master. After moving the appropriate jumper and rebooting, everything is now working.
Hours wasted on this...
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