Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

After shrinking my drive(C) .I have restarted the computer and booted from the CD. When I "Press any key" (In my case the space bar)I don't see a picture as depicted in screen shoot step ....3 but the XP set up starts and continues until I get a message saying that that windows has ended the process to avoid potentially harm from occuring.
Why is the sequence incorrect?
How large should this unallocated space be, I just followed the example and used 40 GB
Something different I did do to attempt to remedy the situation is
I have assigned a letter to the "reserved space" ,I read that xp need to see these letter assignments.However this made no difference.

Yeah, adding letter made no difference as you can see from my screenshot.

Something is not right with what I am doing.
I allocate 40GB of space on my hard drive.(There is plenty of room on the drive)
I than successfully boot from the xp disc.
Upon pressing "any key" to continue (I used the space bar)...what happens is the XP set up starts, I do not see the image as depicted in screen shot step 3.
This set up continues until I get the blue screen of death telling me that windows has stopped in order to prevent dammage, The message suggests I use CHKDSK /f to look over the hard drive etc..
I am using a dell XPS that at one time had vista and now has W7(64)
I am using a new copy of xp(professional)OEM
Volume "E" reserved space = 100MB
Volume "C" before allocation = 297.99 GB
Was the 40GB that I allocated not enough?
Why is this going directlly to set up and not following the sequence as dipicted.
Can someone Kindly help?
Mango

SIW2

Thanks for the response .I was working with an unallocated volume and now I have created a partition with name and a letter. I can see that this can be turned into an active partition with a right click selection but I get a warning that tells me,that this should only be done with a partition that contains a functioning operating system and marking this partition active will harm the computer.So I am timid to do so
what gives? Mango

SIW2
I am happy to report that I have never been so lost.I used the partition wizard and now my disc looks like this
E:System reserved NFTS 100MB 24.65MB 75.35MB Active and Boot Primary
F:Win_XP NFTS 40.55GB 87.14 Mb 40.47GB None Logical
C:Win_7 NFTS 257.43GB 39.21GB 218.38 System Primary
What do I do with this?
Mango
It should be completly evident that I am a rookie

LOL.

With PW , Rt click the XP partition , select Modify>Set as Primary. Click Apply.

Then Rt click the XP partition ( now Primary) Modify>Set as Active. Click Apply.

The XP partition needs to be the only Active partition.

Install XP onto it.


When done, you will only boot into XP - then use PW to set the 100mb as the only Active partition.

Boot into 7 .

D/L Easybcd and add XP as in previous post.

Have Fun.

SIW2
Thanks for your effort on my behalf.It' past my bed time now so I will look into these changes tomorrow. I will let you know how it all goes
thanks again Mango

I am happy to report that I have successfully dual-booted Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and XP SP3 32bit.

For some reason my home made XP disk which I made with nlite to include service packs and other things did not see my newly created partition (which I made in Windows 7) when trying to install XP. Once I dusted off my original XP disk (which I bought in 2002) it recognized my new partition and I followed Bricks guide step-by-step with no issues whatsoever. It is one of the easiest things I've ever done in windows.

Thank you all again for great support.