Constant Crashing on XP Dual Boot Install

[EggMasta]

I have been using ubuntu for a while and I love it. But recently I decided to do a dual boot of Ubuntu and XP. I got all the partitions set up, edited grub and all that jazz. But when ever I go to install XP to the partition, it will load up all the items, get to the "Choose Partition" menu and my computer will just instantly turn off. This has happened at least twenty times now for me, either at that menu, or a little before when it says "Loading Windows" or after, while reformatting the partition or copying files over to the partition.

I tried doing this with many different disks. I tried using XP Pro as well as XP Home. I tried different types of CD-Rs and DVD-rs but the result is always the same. My computer always randomly shuts off.

Any help?

[Mark Phelps]

Did you by any chance have XP on this machine earlier? And did you upgrade or otherwise replace the hard drive since then?

I've seen this happen when folks upgrade their XP installation to a new drive, using some third-party disk cloning utility, and then decide to do a reinstall using that same drive -- only to have XP hang or crash during the reinstall.

The proplem in those cases is that the BIOS (these are really OLD machines) is not able to work properly with the XP installer and file copying fails or hangs during the install.

[EggMasta]

Yes, the machine used to be completly Windows XP. I changed over to Ubuntu ~6 months ago. My laptop is not really that old though, I got it around March 2006. But no, I have never replaced the harddrive on this machine.

[Mark Phelps]

Apart from hardware problems (heat, badly seated CPU, memory failing), don't know what else to suggest.