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Removing Linux From A HD

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7 replies

by xinman

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I installed Linux Red Hat 6.2 on a hard drive, nothing else was or is on the drive. I wanted to remove it and figured the easiest way would be fdisk. Now it's saying that it can't remove the partitions and I can no longer access linux on the hard drive, plus i tried to reinstall and it says error accessing the partition. I've also tried to use partition magic 5, but it couldn't. Is my drive ruined or is there a solution? Please help, I'm a beginner at linux so don't be to harsh.

Thanks

7 replies

by joe prochazka

If you are using the windows fdisk first after booting to a command prompt type

fdisk /mbr

this will fdisk your master boot record

next run fdisk and choose to delete non-dos partitions and remove the old Linux partitions from the disk and then create your new dos partitions.

reboot and format c:

by dljohnston

I has a similar problem with a hard disk that had RH7.0 installed on it. The Fdisk that comes from win95 could NOT touch the partitions I had created with disk druid. I had to go through the install process for RH7.0 custom system and use the Fdisk supplied with it to completely remove all partitions from the HD. Then I could use the win95 fdisk to create a new partition. After that I could "fdisk /mbr" to point the mbr at the first active partition. Hope it helps.
/R/
D

by eugen prokopiev

First, prepare boot disk for the OS you plan to install after deleting Linux. Then boot Linux and enter into "single user" mode by invoking

# telinit S (# means you must be root)

Use fdisk to delete all Linux partitions (don't forget swap partition if you created one).

Reboot with your system disk and set up OS of your choice.

Hope it will help, Eugen.

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