Problem trying to install XP via Boot Camp, computer almost died

Question

Hi there,
I just recently purchased a 24" 2.8Ghz intel iMac 500GB harddrive with OS X 10.5.2. I plugged everything together yesterday morning and the computer was going fine, just liek a dream. On a side note I was genuinely impressed with the ease of setting up and how quick, intuitive and reliable the mac and OS X Leopard was.
This is a bit long but I think I need to go into detail what happened in order for any of you to fully understand what happened to my mac.
Later in the afternoon I decided to install Win XP via Boot Camp. I knew that XP SP2 or later and VISTA was recommended but I decided to use my XP Home Edition "2002 version" install disc instead.
I opened up the Boot Camp Assistant, partitioned 15GB of the 500GB harddrive, inserted WinXP install disc and the computer restarted with everything going to plan thus far. I was going through the install process as normal but I came to a window asking which partition to use to install XP ("c" or "d") or if I wanted to create another partition. I also had my iPod still connected to the computer and I think the installation recognised that harddrive too (all 12GB of space left on my iPod). I wasn't sure what to do so I decided to quit the install process by pressing the relevent keys ("press F3 to quit" etc). Upon automatically restarting the computer I first came to a white screen for about1 or so minutes and then a black screen came up with white text asking me to "press any key to 'something' the CD" (can't remember what the rest of the text was), but the keyboard was unresponsive. I turned the computer off and unplugged it as according to the instruction manual that came with the mac, waited the suggested 5-6 seconds, turned it back on but I came across the same screens. I couldn't eject the XP install disc either. I restarted the computer again, held down the eject button whilst restarting, the disc thankfully ejected but I then came across the same black screen but with no text, just a white flashing underscore cursor. I decided to remove my iPod and restart the computer again. AGAIN I came across the same white screen, then black screen with the flashing white underscore cursor and unresponsive keyboard. I decided to insert the OS X install disc 1 (I don't remember if I inserted it whilst at the black screen or if I restarted the computer and THEN inserted the OS X install disc). The disc loaded slowly but I eventually went through the install process (choosing your language) and then came across a window asking me "Where would you like to install OS X?" but I couldn't install it anywhere. I opened "disk utility" or some program with the word "disk" in it, had no idea what I was doing, somehow created a new volume (though I thought I was actually erasing the XP partition I set up earlier) but in MS-DOS FAT Format or something. I then was able to choose a place (or volume) to install OS X but I had to change the format of the untitled volume from FAT to something along the lines of "Mac OS X journaled (enabled)" (whatever that means). There were other format options available but I just chose the top one on the list (Mac OS X journaled (enabled)). I then made a full install of OS X 10.5.2 and late last night downloaded the latest pdate for Leopard (10.5.4) along with other updates. The computer is working fine now thankfully andeverything seems to be back to normal.
I just want to know what actually happened. What did happen to my computer? Did I somehow wipe the harddrive? Why didn't the computer reboot to HDD when I ejected the WinXP install disc? Which format is the HDD formatted to? What does "Mac OS X journaled (enabled)" mean? Also how come my HDD is 500GB whereas when I checked Boot Camp Asistant a second time (but not installing Win XP again) My HDD is 460GB with 440GB of available space? Is there still another partition I am unable to see? Is there an extra 40GB of data floating around the harddrive that I'm unaware of? What are the factory settings for my computer? I really hope I haven't formatted the disk and installed the OS to settings that weren't like how the computer was originally set BEFORE I regrettably tried to install WinXP via Boot Camp.
If anyone could respond or give me some sort of advice, explanation or help I would very much appreciate your assistance.
Cheers.

Answer 1

According to wiki "the documentation from Apple states that Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista is requisite for a Boot Camp installation, and it also mentions that trying to install an unsupported operating system could prevent the computer from booting even into Mac OS X". Sure that was from wiki, but it does seem to support and somewhat validate the problem I had with installing an earlier edition of XP.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BootCamp_%28software%29#Other_operatingsystems
Thanks for the info on the Filesystem info. My problem is that installing OS X on a mac is just a little bit more technical than installing Windows on a PC as there are a few more things to consider. Plus I'm not familiar with any of the utility programs as well. It's a **** miracle I managed to somehow create a volume to install OS X on when I thought I was erasing the partition I created for WinXP.
But I'm still not sure about the missing 40GB from my 500GB HDD. Upon coming to the desktop straight after OS X was fully re-installed I noticed that the HDD only had 460GB and that 440GB of it available space. So the full installation of OS X was 20GB, but where has the other 40GB gone? I swear I saw that I had much more available space on my harddrive (BEFORE I tried to partition my HDD under Boot Camp Assistant and stuffing up the computer). Is the missing 40GB from the ORIGINAL FACTORY INSTALL of OS X INCLUDING all my iTunes music and other files I uploaded to the computer earlier? It would make sense but there's no way, as far as I know, of checking this. Any ideas?
Cheers.