This has probably been answered before.

[Sylphicide]

Hello there --

I'm new to Linux and hoping to break into the scene with Fedora. I've done a lot of research on various Linux distributions and this one seems to be both easy to understand and very powerful.

Anyways, enough rambling, on to my issue.

I have recently inherited a rather old IBM computer (old from my point of view, it's running XP, albeit very slowly) I think it has about 512mb of RAM, though that's from the top of my head. Anyways, I'd like to use this computer to test Fedora so if I completely destroy it it will be of no real loss to me.

The problem is this -- XP will not budge.

I've tried the three most popular fixes starting in safe mode and uninstalling, installing Fedora over top, and the ever popular trying to uninstall through DOS. Nothing works. When I try to uninstall through DOS it gives me an error saying there's something wrong with my registry. The error message to install Fedora on top I get to the partitioning part of the install and it says something like 'there is no room for /root/' (I can get the exact error message if need be)

Anyone know how to kill XP and get Fedora on this machine? Perhaps a well placed magnet will solve all my problems. Haha!

Ah yes, and if this has been solved already and I have been too daft to find it (I have been searching a good portion of the day -- I really did try before posting!) if someone could link me to the article in question I would be forever in their debt. Thanks again!

[Nokia]

On older machines XP has an edge over any other distro: It cannot be killed
That said, you might have missed this:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f9/en_US/

[JohnVV]

well if you DO and i mean 100% want to get rid of xp there is dban ( boot and nuke) http://www.dban.org/
but the install dvd or live cd can and will format the drive during install .
but on a old box fedora 9 most likely will not run or will but with a lot of hacking , downgrading xorg , if there is a old 3d graphics card .
Fedora 8 should install and run with only minor or no problems , maybe.
But if xp was very slow on this box then fedora 8 should be slow too.

[MEX]

The easiest way to get another OS on a old computer as yours is to get another HDD !

Just open it and look what type of interface your computer has to access its HDD, then look for a HDD of the same form factor and the same interface at eBay or by a dealer near you. Usually you should try to get a new HDD with at least twice as much space as the old one, so that you can copy the partitions from your old HDD to your new HDD after you have installed Linux.

When you are not satisfied with the new OS, then you can always put the old HDD back into your computer. Otherwise you can get a external case for your old ( or new ) HDD to use it as a USB drive

MfG, MEX

[Sylphicide]

Hey guys thanks for the quick replies!

Finally getting down to look at the machine more closely, it's not really in too bad of shape all things considered. It's got a lot of crap on it bogging everything down. Looks like the former owner wasn't too keen on prevention and removal of viruses. Go figure. Though if I find Fedora 9 is sluggish I'll burn a Fedora 8 DVD and go back to start!

I find it weird that the install DVD I'm using wouldn't remove XP, I read through the docs, and couldn't find anything to force uninstall my old OS, so I'm going to try and Nuke XP. I'll let you all know how that works out for me!

And trust me, I'd love to get a new HDD, if I wasn't so dirt poor I might just. Curse being a student and living the rest of your natural life in debt!

Thanks Again! I really appreciate the help!

[w5set]

And the hard drive might have that $%^$#$ "lock" set in it too. .

[Sylphicide]

Just so everyone knows, Darik's Boot and Nuke solved the problem, I wiped out the hard drive completely then was able to install Fedora on my computer, thanks for all the help!

[LDC]

the old dear mkfs was not enough?
btw what a nice utility there....

[JohnVV]

btw what a nice utility there....

what dban ?

[LDC]

Originally Posted by JohnVV

what dban ?

yep, I didn't knew it