Attempting to install windows xp pro on my mbp

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Lets put this simply, I have looked around everywhere and still haven't gotten any closer to installing Windows XP pro.
I recently installed a 500gb hard drive into my mbp for that specific purpose. When copying the image from my old drive to my new one, I partitioned the hard drive into 3, all Mac OS extended (journaled). I read that bootcamp cannot function unless having one single partition. I have attempted to install windows XP pro and vista, but in both cases it does not recognize the partitions. My question is as follows; is there a way without having to recopy my hdd and repartitioning, to install windows on the partitions that I have already allocated?
My MacBook Pro OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
-500 gb hdd
-partition 1: OS X-200gb
-partition 2: Media- 225gb
-partition 3: "Windows"- 40gb
the remainder is used for the formatting
-2.4 ghz intel Core 2 Duo
-3mb L2 Cache
-4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
-GeForce 8600M GT 256mb

Please help me, I just want to start playing my video games I'm bored in school!
Thanks
 
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format the windows partition as fat32 and try again, windows can't 'see' EFI partitions
 
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What program can I use to format the partition? disk utility can't do it.
 

chscag

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You have to format the partition by using your Leopard DVD to first boot the machine. Then run Disk Utility. You might need to erase that 40 GB partition first and then format it as FAT-32. However, I'm not sure XP or Vista will install direct without using Boot Camp.

Whenever you setup three partitions like you did, that confuses BC and the Windows installer. You may have to resort to using rEFIt. It's free and can be downloaded from here.

Might be wise, however, to start over by getting everything back to one large 500 GB partition. Run Boot Camp and create a 40 GB partition (will have to be formatted as NTFS). After Windows (XP or Vista) is installed, you can run Disk Utility as I mentioned above and create a third partition from the remaining OS X large partition.

Another nice option you might consider is "iPartition". It's not free but it works better than DU. Link

Regards.
 
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Thank for your help, I ended up erasing it and just reinstalling it. Same result + a clean wipe from first time user mistakes.
 

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