I'm having a plethora of problems when attempting to install this godforsaken OS, and it's driving me mad!

I have no CD drive, so I'm doing it all via USB, using usb_prep8.

I get XP on the flash drive just fine, but when I try to use the GUI install, it gives me some error about hal.dll, which I've read is a problem with the boot.ini or whatever.

When doing the text install, it works fine, reboots the computer, then gives me this crazy error:

Quote:Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.
Could not read from the selected boot pocky. Check boot path and disk hardware.
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

And I have no idea what that means. I've tried both usb_prep8, and usb_multiboot10, and neither has worked. I've also tried an untouched SP3 CD, and my own nlite creations, no change.

My partitions are as follows:
20GB ext4 - Ubuntu
20GB ntfs - Windows
20GB ext3 - Slax Remix (not there yet, empty partition now)
238GB extended:
    233GB ext4 - /home
    5GB swap


This is driving me completely mad, it shouldn't be this damn difficult to install Windows. (more reason for me to hate goddamn Windows )

Please help me fix this! I need Windows so I can play some damn games!

And no, don't tell me Wine, or Cedega or VM or whatever. The games I want to play just barely run fine in Windows, so they all run like spoon in Wine, Cedega, a VM, etc.