uninstalling Linux

[haggisinlondon]

Hi

I have two harddrives. One running windows xp and the other running Mandrake Linux. I want to redo my computer and reinstall everything. I would like to format the Linux harddrive and use that to copy all my software to, format my windows drive, reinstall xp and then copy the software I need from the other drive. Finally reinstall Mandrake Linux baxk onto the other drive.

What I need to know is how do I uninstall Linux off the other drive and format it so windows can use the drive? Can I just use fdisk?

My pc currently boots up to the Linux option screen to choose which operatin system I want to use.

Thanks

[Floppyman]

Hi,

I'm not quite one hundred percent sure on this, but you might be able to delete the partitions off the linux drive if you launch the Mandraxe Linux setup again. When you get to the section during the setup where it asks you to create partitions, just delete all of them that are currently setup, and exit the setup and reboot. Then you can create new partitions with fdisk and format them etc., on the drive after you have done that.

The other option would be download a utitily from the manufacturer of your harddrive, that allows you to write 0's to your harrdrive, which will get rid of the partitions and all data on that drive. After writing 0's to the drive, you can also fdisk again and format etc.

There might be a third way, using some other software, but these are the two that I'm aware of. Hope this helps.

[aym]

Hi Floppyman,
I tried to remove Redhat by running its setup and deleting Linux partitions, but RedHat refused to continue without having some Linux partitions, not sure about Mandrake though.
The easiest way I found to remove Linux is by using a free tool called DelPart, download it, copy the exe file to a bootable floppy, boot from the floppy and type delpart, remove Linux partitions, and create new FAT32 or NTFS partitions using Windows XP disk management tool.

[Floppyman]

Hi aym_7,

Thanks for replying. delpart, that's it. I have even used it to delete partitions and probably still have it on a floppy somwhere, but I forgot all about it though. If delete your partitions during setup, and then just hit reset, I wonder if it will still work that way then.

[jglen490]

The simplest thing to do is to use the version of fdisk that comes with linux. Simply reallocate the Linux partitions to a FAT32, which Linux fdsik will do without breathing hard !!