worked for me!

last night i backed up and wiped my whole system (dell e520, core 2 duo, 3 months old) and then reloaded a fresh vista using my dell disc on the smallest partition (cant really use vista with my software, just wanted it there in case for the future!)

Then I loaded xp pro on the main partition. your instructions were literally ""1,2,3" and it was all done in an hour or so.

thanks for the great guide.