Removed Boot Camp partition, made new one, Windows won't install.

[NickM]

Here's the deal...
I had XP on a partition that I could either Boot Camp into or pull up via Parallels. I removed the partition with Boot Camp Assistant.
I then used Boot Camp Assistant to make a new, smaller partition to reinstall Windows XP to.
Everything was going fine during XP install until it went to reboot, but came back with "disc error. Press any key to reboot." (I pressed keys, but nothing would happen. I had to power down and back on.)

Now all I can get is that error message.

If I hold the Option key and bring up the boot menu to boot into Windows partition, it gives that error message.

I'm back into OS X now, and see the "BOOTCAMP" icon on my desktop...

I run Boot Camp Assistant again, gonna try to just remove the new partition and start over...
But when I try to go through Boot Camp Assistant, it says, "The startup disk cannot be partitioned or restored to a single partition.
Back up the disk and use Disk Utility to format it as a single Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume. Restore your information to the disk and try using Boot Camp Assistant again."

What am I supposed to do?
I just wanted to downsize the XP partition from 60GB to 30GB...



Someone please offer some help
It will be greatly appreciated.

 

[jav6454]

OK this seems a quite strange thing but not in expected considering it's Windows.

I would use Parallels to boot up your Boot Camp partition and use Parallels to transform the partition into a Virtual machine file. That way you get your HDD space back. Retry using boot camp to reinstall XP

Note: I did this using Fusion, so I assume Paralels can port a Boot Camp partition and convert it into a virtual machine file.

 

[iLog.Genius]

If you're getting that error message and it either does nothing or loops itself, then during the install process, you didn't format the partition to NTFS or FAT32, you left the file system as it is and installed to it. Boot back to the XP install disc and reinstall it making sure you selected to format as NTFS or FAT32.

 

[NickM]

If you're getting that error message and it either does nothing or loops itself, then during the install process, you didn't format the partition to NTFS or FAT32, you left the file system as it is and installed to it. Boot back to the XP install disc and reinstall it making sure you selected to format as NTFS or FAT32.

It was on FAT32.... But I could very well have slipped and hitva button hehehe
I ended up accidentally erasing the OS X install LOL so I'm just doing a full clean setup. I like do it pretty often anyway...
Although, I did lose sons stuff that will take me a while to get back.