installing Windows XP on MACBOOK

hi guys
can u help me out in this...... in wanna installing win XP in my mac book .... so is a new partition necessary ? b'coz 1 of my friend was using Win XP n had installed linux in the same partition ..... n with the corruption of a single notepad file his system crashed...........
presenly i also have just one partition only so i doubted if another partitio ws necessary...........

also another point ws tht i cud not decide whether to go for boot camp or cross over........... actually i ws new 2 mac book, so had no experience abt it..........

Go with boot camp crossover will work with about 70% of windows software, where as boot camp IS windows and it will work with 100% of software. As for the partition you do need it where else are you going to install XP. It won't corrupt trust me I have to reinstall XP 3 times and it works fine. Also format the XP partition as a FAT 32 so you can drag and drop files between OS's.