Unable to install XP or Vista on Dell Inspiron 530 with Ubuntu 8.04

Hi!

Microsoft has designed the Windows setup process to only properly install Windows on a primary partition. However, a way o install Windows to a logical partition exists - it includes interruptingthe setup process at a given point, manually copying and modifying some files, and continuing the setup process from there. As far as I remember it, I woukdn't suggest this for novice users.
A step-by-step description of the whole process has surfaced at several points on this board; you'll likely stumble across it in threads dealing with multi-boot configurations.
However, it is usually a really simple task to move an existing Linux installation from one partition to another: First, copy the existing installation to a new partition. Then mount that partition and correct the device names within the fstab and GRUB configuration file (don't forget the device names within the kernel parameters and the templates from which new lines are automatically generated!). Re-install GRUB, pointing to the new root partition - and you're done.
This way you could move your existing Linux system to a logical partition, then re-format the old (and now unneeded) Linux root partition - and install XP there.

Windows writes its boot loader to the first (by partition table entry number) "windows-readable" partition it finds. Since it understands FAT32, it has installed the boot loader on the "Ubuntu CD" partition.
In fact, you can control where the boot loader is installed: Simply make sure Windows sees no "windows-readable" partitions before the setup process starts; this will result in the boot loader being written to the Windows system partition. Since Windows uses the file system ID stored in the partition table to determine if it can read the partition, it is complertely sufficient to change the file system ID there using the linux fdisk tool on the command line (the graphical GParted application can't do this job). Simply change the ID of the FAT32 partition to e.g. "82" (which indicates a Linux partition), then install XP, and afterwards chanbe the ID back to its previous value.

Hi!

Have a look at http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=1598 (the 12th post, written by cmdr @ 2008-08-19 23:00:16).

If I get cmdr's post right, this does work well - although I haven't tried it myself.

... which would be enough - since Windows only needs one partition.
Just to ensure I've got your partitioning schemes right: Your "original" layout was

hda1    pri             Dell Utility Partition
hda2    pri    FAT32    Ubuntu CD contents
hda3    pri    ext3     Ubuntu root
hda4    pri    -        Linux swap

Then you changed this to your current state:

hda1      pri             Dell Utility Partition
hda2      pri    FAT32    Ubuntu CD contents
hda3      pri    ext3     Ubuntu root
hda4      ext              extended
  hda5    log    -        Linux swap
  hda6    log    NTFS     Windows system, created by Windows setup

My suggestion in this case would be to boot from the GParted LiveCD and first delete (!) sda6. Then copy hda3 into the extended partition (maybe you'll have to shrink it beforehand, depending on the sizes). The result would look like this:

hda1      pri             Dell Utility Partition
hda2      pri    FAT32    Ubuntu CD contents
hda3      pri    ext3     Ubuntu root (original)
hda4      ext              extended
  hda5    log    -        Linux swap
  hda6    log    ext3     Ubuntu root (copy)

At this point, re-installing GRUB and adapting your fstab and menu.lst (all done on the new Ubuntu root within the logical partition, of course!) would be a good idea, so you can safely test how the system boots from its new partition.
If everything runs fine, you can simply install Windows into the previous Ubuntu root partition (don't forget to set/reset the partition ID on /dev/hda2 befiore & after the installation if you want to keep the Windows boot loader off hda2):

hda1      pri             Dell Utility Partition
hda2      pri    FAT32    Ubuntu CD contents
hda3      pri    NTFS     Windows system, re-formatted during Windows setup
hda4      ext              extended
  hda5    log    -        Linux swap
  hda6    log    ext3     Ubuntu root

The result: Windows & Ubuntu on the same hard drive - wothout losing any of the pre-existing partitions (maybe they're useful or something...)

Of yourse you can delete this partition - but I don't know if this has any negative effects on your system. So I'd simply keep it - see my explanations above.

The system came with Ubuntu pre-installed? Then maybe you can ask Dell... or compare the contents of this partition to an Ubuntu CD... or simply leave this partition untouched (you maybe should create a backup of this on CD/DVD).

There are several ways how to specify the partition that is to be mounted withinn fstab.
One way ist teh "standard" /dev/hda1 scheme I used in my prior post. The great advantage of this is that you can specify any partition this way, the partition specifications are short and well readable, and if you have an idea about your partition layout, you'll immediately know which line references to which partition, so it's easy to maintain and manipulate.
Ubuntu has chosen another way: Most file systems contain an UUID - an ID that is stored insaide the filesytem and that (should be) unique world-wide. When specifying a partition by UUID, the machine scans all partitions it finds and builds a lift of their file system UUIDs. Afterwards, it mounts the file systems with the specified UUIDs in the specified places. Advantage of this method: If you e.g. insert a new partition before an existing one (and change the partition order in the MBR partition table!), you'd have to manually change your fstab if you used the "standard" scheme, since the partition name has changed. However, the UUID variant is robust against this change - since the file system's UUID didn't change during inserting & reordering partitions. But there's no advantage without disadvantage: You can only mount a partition this way if Linux understands its UUID (or if it carries one). For e.g. FAT32 or NTFS partitions, I think this won't work, so you'd have to specify them the "traditional" way!
There are one or two more ways to specify which partition to mount where, but these are not relevant right here - you can read about them in the fstab man page if you're interested.
As a result, I'd say that you don't have to change your UUID, since it won't be changed during your operations. However, please keep in mind that after copying the Ubuntu partition, you'll have two partitions with identical file system UUIDs on your hard drive - and I don't know how the system handles this situation (maybe it throws an error and refuses to mount anything... Maybe it mounts a random partition out of these two... no idea). So if you want to try how your Ubuntu system works from its new logical partition befiore you install Windows, you simply should create a backup of your fstab and then change the partition specification back to the "/dev/hda1" scheme.

It should be safe to switch to the "standard" naming scheme here, too. To be safe & sure, simply create a backup before any manipulation - if something goes wrong, you can boot any Linux Live CD and revert the files to their original state.