Install Windows XP in Leopard WITHOUT Boot Camp - No More Disk Error

Question

For those of you having problems installing Windows XP in Boot Camp because of the formatting screen never showing up and then the system restarting with the dreaded:
Press any key to boot from CD .....
Disk Error
Press any key to restart
I too spent many frustrating hours trying to find a solution that worked. I searched these threads, tried many of the solutions suggested here and elsewhere, including recreating the Windows CD without a specific file, using the FreeDOS boot CD (couldn't ever get it to work, though I understand some people have had success), Reinstalling Leopard and trying again, dancing around the laptop with incense three times counter clockwise while chanting the name of my childhood pet... etc.
I FOUND A NEW SOLUTION!!!! A much easier solution!!!!
For anyone who is having this problem and is planning to run virtualization software.
(Something that let's you run Windows from inside Leopard)
SKIP BOOT CAMP ALTOGETHER!!!
USE VMware Fusion to install Windows.
I decided to try a different approach entirely and did a completely fresh install of Leopard (not sure if that was necessary or not but with everything else I had been trying I wanted to clean it up anyhow) and then installed the 30 day trial version of Fusion w/ the unlock key VMware emailed me.
I entered my information and Windows product key into Fusion's "Easy Install" Interface, clicked install, and about 30 minutes later I was browsing around in XP.
I HIGHLY recommend this option for anyone having difficulty with the formatting screen not showing up. I have a Bachelors Degree in Information Systems and still spent the better part of 2 days working on this boot camp problem, including numerous hours with the higher tier of apple's tech support. I suspect that those of us having this problem may have an OEM or systembuilder copy of XP... but that is for Apple to deal with - not me, I have better things to do with my time.
If you are planning to run Windows from within Leopard anyhow, just buy Fusion and to **** with the hassle.
You can go to VMware's website and get a 30 day evaluation copy to see if this will work for you before you decide if you want to purchase it, they will email you the unlock key.
Best of luck, hope this saves someone some time!

Answer 1

For what it's worth, I've used the OEM version (copper disk), Select version (bulk license), and an NFR (partner program) version of XP Pro with SP2 and they all worked. On my MacBook Pro's I use boot camp to split the disk in two, reboot using the Windows CD, and pick the partition to format it.
Apple states that you need a full version of Windows, and the OEM versions are slightly different from the commercial versions, but both should work. On my Mac Pro, I created a 3-disk OS X RAID-0, and left the 4th disk alone. I rebooted with the Windows CD and installed Windows to the 4th disk without Bootcamp at all. Once Windows was installed, I used the Leopard disk to install the Bootcamp drivers. The Mac side has no Bootcamp installation but I can still choose between the volumes by holding down the option key at boot time or by setting the startup volume in the OS X Startup disk preference pane.
The solution to use virtualization, unfortunately, will not work for many situations where graphics are involved. Most current major products, such as AutoCAD, 3dsMax, and so forth, will not run properly or at all without specific DirectX 9 or OpenGL support. To date both Parallels and VMWare do not completely support DirectX or OpenGL.