[kaisersouse]

I'm willing to bet the maintenance partition on that Compaq (Dell, HP, Lenovo...most manufacturers have a ~20MB partition for diagnostic apps) is whats really messing with you. I say:

Pull your drive out put in another computer
Copy all your shit off
Load XP disc
Partition drive in two...one for windoze and one for linux
Install XP
Install linux
Copy your shit back