I was happily running XP when I decided to install Linux as a dual-boot.  My friend gave me a CD for the Lycoris distro.  I used the Lycoris installer to make a 20 GB section on my 80 GB SATA hard drive, which it did. I installed Lycoris and tried to boot it. It hung at the boot screen for an hour until I restarted.  I then tried booting XP. The boot screen appears for a few seconds and the computer restarts.  I thought it was not a problem and that I could just put my XP cd in and all would be WELL. unfortunately, it doesn't load and the "choose an os" screen appears. i then tried killdisk and it says that there is an A: drive and asks me to choose a file because killdisk.exe doesnt load.  i dont have a FLOPPY drive, but if needed i can take it out of my other computer.  i have tried playing with bios settings with no luck, just trying to get lycoris to load.

so, any help would be greatly appreciated!You will NEED to change your bios to make your cdrom the first boot drive.
Then boot with the xp disk in & repair/reinstall xp from there.
(If I were you I'd delete everything, delete & re-create new partitions & start fresh)my bios has cdrom as first boot device, and it will load other cds. it won't load the xp disc though.It sounds like the 2 operating systems are having some issues with each other. Thats why you shouldn't duel boot unless you have RECOVERY Console installed.

Hmmm Only thing I can think of now is try booting into safe mode for XP. If you can't put in the Disc for Linux and uninstall linux.

This should free up your XP

you might just be screwed though. i'll look it up.i think i am just screwed.

how should i go about formatting my hard drive now? Quote

my bios has cdrom as first boot device, and it will load other cds. it won't load the xp disc though.