XP boot camp install trouble

[Cheesegod99]

Hello all! Hopefully someone here will be able to help me out. I recently got my 2.5 MBP and I'm trying to install XP. I bought a new (sealed) copy of XP pro SP2 OEM on ebay, and I'm having some serious trouble getting this thing to work for me. It is a full version, not an upgrade. I can run boot camp and partition the hard drive with no problem. Then I start the windows installation, and it runs like its supposed to (selecting which partition to install to) and installs.
Heres where the problem starts, though. Instead of allowing me to select a disk format, it finishes installing and then the computer restarts - tells me to press any key - and then starts reinstalling windows all over again in an endless loop! I've tried rebooting the computer using the option key, and I am able to open the Mac HD partition without a problem (thank god!) but if I try to open the windows partition it gives me a black screen with a "disk error" or something along those lines. Any help you could give me would be very much appreciated!!

 

[Cheesegod99]

nevermind, I found a work around for it. I had to format the partition using the windows installer before I installed windows. If you are having the same problem I was, I suggest you search this forum for "boot camp unable to format".

 

[Veej]

Hi Cheesegod,
I'm in the same shoes as you but searching for that only brings up 2 other results, none of which really help!

When you say you formatted the partition before, did you delete the partititon boot camp created and then formatted it using the Windows installer and let Windows install? I tried this but it didn't work - is that what you did or am I missing something?