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Formatting a hard drive...

J

jstayton

Junior Member
Hey Everyone,

Here's my problem. I have both Red Hat Linux 6.1 and Windows 95 installed on his old computer I have. What I need to do is formatt my entire hard drive, including wiping out the linux and windows partitions. How can I do this? Thanks for any help...
 
you'll need to clear the master boot record too. i think the switch is "fdisk /mbr" to do that. but you still need to run fdisk to clear your other partitions.
 
Ok, here's what I did: I went into fdisk from MS DOS and deleted all partitions and everything. Even Non-DOS paritions. So then I restarted my computer and the LILO dual boot still came up 🙁 I typed in DOS and then it tried finding Windows 95, but all that came up was "A>"

What should I do?
 
I had a similar problem and I believe the solution is to remove the linux partition by running the linux install program and running fdisk in linux. It drove me crazy for quite a while since I am told that linux partitions are invisible to both Windows and DOS. The only way to delete a Linux partition is thru linux. Unless you low level format the drive, like with a magnet, I supppose. I am sure that there are some Linux aces on board that can confirm or deny what I say. Good luck
Chuck
 
I found my old link on hardwarehottalk.com and the answer to your problem, thanks to almayf at HHT:
"First, you need to boot to your linux install disk as if you were going to install linux. You haven't mentioned which Red Hat version you are using, but all the versions I have used offered the option of using fdisk to partition the harddrive during the install. When offered the option of using Disk Druid or fdisk, choose the fdisk. Choose "edit" on the next screen and it will unceremoniously toss you into text mode fdisk. It tells you which letter to type for a help menu (can't remember). Looking at the help menu, select the letter that prints the partition table (to the screen). Look at the listed partitions, write them down if necessary, then select the letter for deleting partitions. They must be deleted individually. Just to be safe, print the partition table again to make sure you got rid of them. Then select the letter that writes the new partition table to disk. At this point, you can reboot your computer to a dos disk.
You may still have to fdisk /mbr to clear Lilo out of your master boot record. Afterwards, you should be able to use dos fdisk to create a partition for your windows install.

If you do not want to lose the windows partition, don't delete it while in linux. After booting to your windows boot disk, fdisk /mbr, then sys c:

That should restore bootability of your windows partition. If it doesn't, boot to your dos bootdisk again, go into fdisk and make the windows partition active."
At least this is what finally worked for me to restore my hard drive on my old IBM Aptiva. Hope this helps. Thanks again to almayf, an HHT regular and a great guy.
Chuck
"You don't have to know everything. You just have to know who knows!
🙂
 
Ok, here's a quick question for you Linux people: I've deleted all partitions on my hard drive; both DOS and Linux ones. I now need to create a partition to install Windows 98 Second Edition on. The only way of doing this, at least that I can think of, is to use Linux fdisk and create a DOS partition. The problem is, I can't figure out how to do this. Can anyone help or point me to a tutorial or something? Or tell me someone of installing Windows 98 on a hard drive with zero partitions 🙂 Thanks so much...
 
well boot with your linux disk into text mode. run fdisk,
hit "p" to view your table
and hit "t" and select partition (1,2,etc)
and change it back to a fat32(0C). you may also want to change your swap back, or better yet, remove the type 83 and 82 and change them to one fat32 (0c)or delete all partitions, and make one big fat32. Make sure to "w" write and "q" quit, upon reboot, your table should be changed. also, there is "cfdisk" which is a little more interactive, which is included on most distros, its a little easier than fdisk for begginers.




<< Ok, here's a quick question for you Linux people: I've deleted all partitions on my hard drive; both DOS and Linux ones. I now need to create a partition to install Windows 98 Second Edition on. The only way of doing this, at least that I can think of, is to use Linux fdisk and create a DOS partition. The problem is, I can't figure out how to do this. Can anyone help or point me to a tutorial or something? Or tell me someone of installing Windows 98 on a hard drive with zero partitions Thanks so much... >>

 
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