Big Mess

[DRGrim]

I am in a bit of trouble.
Windows randomly crashes in games, although I have switched video cards several times. My question is not how to fix this. I will ask that later, when I have figured out my other problems.
Anyway, I got so fed up with Windows that I decided to download Linux Mandrake, so I could fool around with that. Since I just got my CD burner for xmas, I really haven?t figured out how to use it yet. Long story short, it didn?t work. My question is not how to work a CD burner. I will ask that later.
Now. I had a Turbolinux CD hanging around that I got with some piece of hardware, so I figured that would be the next best thing. It turns out I?m not as ?l33t? as I thought I was, and could not successfully install it. In the end, I just wanted to go back to windows, and forget the whole thing.
Well, Turbolinux made all these partitions, and now I?m really confused. I tried deleting the Primary partition, and it said I couldn?t, because there was an Extended partition. No problem. I tried to deleting the extended, and it yelled at me because there were logical drives. Sigh. So I went back once again to delete the logical drive. Fdisk says there aren?t any.
Ah, good old Microsoft.
So my question is, how do I completely erase everything on my hard drive, partitions and all, so I can start afresh?
Thanks all, and I?ll get back to you on those other questions as soon as I get this straightened out

 

[Stealth1024]

Boot from a Win98, 98SE, or WinME floppy.
Run FDISK.
Delete all partitions.
Display partition status to be sure they are all gone.
Create a primary partition using all available space.
Reboot from floppy.
Format hard drive.
Install OS.

Any questions?

 

[DRGrim]

Yes, that would work, exept I can't delete any partitions, remember? It won't let me delete the extended partition because there are logical drives, but when I try to delete the logical drives, it says there arnt any. That's my question. Thanks.

 

[aUt0eXebat]

i had this prob with one computer, are you booting from a win98 startup disk? if so, are you selecting the option to load cdrom drivers? if so that could be your problem. it was for me. try booting without cdrom support.

 

[DRGrim]

I wasn't useing cdrom support. If I tried useing it, do you think it would help?
Thanks!

 

[Stealth1024]

Take an industrial sized electromagnet and pass it over your hard drive.

 

[jeans2nd]

Try a low level format. It's a drastic measure, but it will fix all your partitioning problems. Make certain that you know what type of hard drive you have. Go to the vendor's web site, and download the utilities for your type drive that will perform a low level format or write testing. I have had this same problem you have, on different machines (all IBM), and I low level formatted all of them. It's quicker, too, than fooling around anymore trying to find another solution.

 

[Insane3D]

"Take an industrial sized electromagnet and pass it over your hard drive"

LOL! I bet that would do it...hehe.