can't initialize to MBR!

I just managed to install a second HDD, and my OS sees it.
However, Partition Wizard does not let me initialize to MBR.
When I go to "Disc" on the top bar, everything in the drop down menu is grayed out. It is NTFS formatted, made Primary, Status is "none". I want to prepare it to install Windows XP. What do I have to do to make this work?

Forget using Partition Wizard and take a fast trip into the the Disk Management tool there to simply delete the present volume to see a new replacement using the add new volume wizard. The default option will be MBR automatically not the second GUID option you wouldn't use.

One possible problem for running into this would be a bad burn for a live cd for the PW program. This is one reason I have GParted on both live cds as well as written on a small bootable flash drive since the drive tool never seems to run into problems like this. That's another free option to consider besides going into the DM tool.

Thanks, Night Hawk! I did what you wrote with the Disk Management tool. It did not offer to initialize to MBR - is that automatic?
Is the drive ready now for XP installation?

If you deleted the first and simply went ahead and created the new one the XP installer will format it for you during the custom install as well as place it's own mbr entries in. You should be set.

To avoid the need to repair the 7 boot information as mentioned in the Method Two for seeing XP installed after 7, Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP you may want to first unplug the 7 drive to prepare for a stand alone install of XP.

Once XP is on you can simply copy the boot files over to the root of the 7 host drive and edit the boot.ini file(copy of) there to point at the second drive as well as use EasyBCD to add a new boot entry into the 7 boot options. Instead of "rdisk(0)partition 1)" you would see "rdisk(1)partition 1" making that small change using NotePad and use the "save as all files" option not txt to see that taken care of.

You usually have to take ownership if you unable to uncheck the "read only" box on the copy however. Another tip is simply lowering the default 30 seconds for seeing the boot options screen displayed way down to only 5 seconds. Here I have lowered down to only 3. That will speed up the boot time quite a bit!

Night Hawk said:

If you deleted the first and simply went ahead and created the new one the XP installer will format it for you during the custom install as well as place it's own mbr entries in. You should be set.

Ok, I loaded the XP CD, and it started loading its files, but then the blue screen appeared and the message that something went wrong (too much text to remember). "If this is the first time this happened, turn off computer and try again ..." was part of that message. It didn't even let me restart with Ctr-Alt_Del, and I had to cut the power.

To avoid the need to repair the 7 boot information as mentioned in the Method Two for seeing XP installed after 7, Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP you may want to first unplug the 7 drive to prepare for a stand alone install of XP.

Once XP is on you can simply copy the boot files over to the root of the 7 host drive and edit the boot.ini file(copy of) there to point at the second drive as well as use EasyBCD to add a new boot entry into the 7 boot options. Instead of "rdisk(0)partition 1)" you would see "rdisk(1)partition 1" making that small change using NotePad and use the "save as all files" option not txt to see that taken care of.
You usually have to take ownership if you unable to uncheck the "read only" box on the copy however. Another tip is simply lowering the default 30 seconds for seeing the boot options screen displayed way down to only 5 seconds. Here I have lowered down to only 3. That will speed up the boot time quite a bit!

This is a bit too technical for me to follow!

Here's a few screens that show how the add new volume wizard works. DiskPart was used at the time to clean the drive off followed by the trip into the DM.

I ran it again and wrote down that text on the blue screen:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
If this is the first time you've seen this screen, restart your computer. If it happens again, do the following:
Check for viruses on your computer.
Remove newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers.
Run CHKDSK /F to check for HD corruption, then restart.
My repeated tries made no difference, it keeps happening.
I have no viruses (AVG installed).
Should I really pull out my new drive, after it is recognized?
Should I run CHKDSK /F?

Yes, my trip to the DM looked the same as your images. But I still can't install XP.

Alsenor said:

I ran it again and wrote down that text on the blue screen:
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.
If this is the first time you've seen this screen, restart your computer. If it happens again, do the following:
Check for viruses on your computer.
Remove newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers.
Run CHKDSK /F to check for HD corruption, then restart.
My repeated tries made no difference, it keeps happening.
I have no viruses (AVG installed).
Should I really pull out my new drive, after it is recognized?
Should I run CHKDSK /F?

We just missed each other on the last post I see! Now are you trying this with the partition created with the PW program or did you create a new primary before booting from the XP cd?

While booted in 7 you can schedule another run another run of checkdisk with the /r switch but may want to start off with a second fresh primary once the problem partition is gone. Simply right click on the drive in the DM in order to see it deleted. You can then create a new primary with the wizard or when going to boot from the XP cd the next time allowing the XP installer to format it during the next attempt.

By first using the DM to see the new one created and formatted there you can try copying some files over to it to see if the drive itself has any defects like bad sectors however. That will save you some time as well.