The blessed, and the least favored -Session1

There is one, and then there is the other.
By virtue of the alignment of the constellations it was decided.
One, the heir apparent, another, the family's bane.
This is the story of the later.

He should have been cast into the river upon birth, and was fortunate such was not the case. Resigned to his banishment, he only sought a humble existence among fellow peasants. Even while he lived in the House, simple folk fare had always been his preference. He only wanted to live in peace.

Yet the same Kingdom which rejected him, would not leave things well enough alone. His calling came least expected, and in the guise of fame and fortune, was the option of more or less certain death.

Much was said of why he chose to go, yet the true reason, himself does not know. Fame and title appealed little to him, nor did he care much about saving the Kingdom from a rebellion. A 'romantic' some would say, but a cynical man has few emotions, and honors he needed none.

He stood before the nobles, ready to embark. To receive their blessings. To hear the words they wish to say, and to say the words they wish to hear. Towards the wonderful promises of rewards, he held no expectations. Between the path of nails and the path of needles, he simply chose the path they chose for him.

To be continued...

Transition Issues Log - Bootcamp Win XP installation

Recreating Windows Partitions
When trying to modify the windows partition size, DO NOT do it using disk utility.
Go to BootCamp Assistant > Create or remove a Windows partition > Restore (this will delete the entire Windows partition, and all data will be lost)
Continue using BootCamp assistant to create a new partition.

FAT32 vs NTFS
Though NTFS is more secure than FAT, you won't be able to write or save files to the Windows volume from Mac OS X.
FAT32 partitions also cannot be more than 32GB.

BootCamp win XP Installation Process
Google for instructions. (here is one link) But the most important point to note, most general instructions are meant for a FAT32 format. most will warn of this common mistake:
After initiating the BootCamp > Start windows installation, you will be booted to a DOS prompt.
(if using FAT32 format) DO NOT select Leave The Current File System Intact—make sure you format the partition to NTFS or FAT using.
*But this 2nd problem is rarely mentioned* (If using the NTFS format) DO NOT go ahead with above step. You will probably get the hal.dll error (see below) Follow the instructions given below...

hal.dll errors
If it was NTFS then you may have the hal.dll (Hardware Abstraction Layer) missing error.
After the initial dos based copy phase of the Windows install, I'm getting the following error on a black screen:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Solution
Many suggestions can be found online, but So far, only this worked. (specification: my system is partitioned as OS X> 24GB ; WinXP > 120 GB NTFS)
A match made in hell: Windows XP, Boot Camp 2.0, and NTFS
After the computer has rebooted and it’s booted from the CD, type “R” to go to the console. You should be dumped to the C:\ prompt.

We’re going to reformat the drive as NTFS ourselves instead of letting the Windows installer do it. Type the following and hit Return:
format c: /q /fs:ntfs

Then type this to reboot the computer:
exit

Hold Option after it restarts, then boot to the Windows installation CD again (I believe it boots to the CD by default at this point, but this is just to be sure).

Install to C: (be careful not to select your OS X volume!), but—and this is important—choose NOT to reformat. Leave the file system as is.

Continue the installation process as you would normally.
If things went well, the 256-color Windows logo should load