Help! Can't format my comp with Linux!

[Zulu8]

I'm a real newbie to Linux and now that I've installed it, it has changed my filesystem and therefore I can't format with DOS based boot disks anymore. How do I format my Linux system? I just want my HD to be back to FAT32 now, I want it back to Windoze!! Help! It partitioned my HD into a few different paritions too. Any help would be appreciated. Thanx.

 

[R0b0tN1k]

You need to run fdisk, nuke the linux partitions, then re-create it all with FAT.

 

[DJE007]

Run fdisk /mbr to get rid of lilo
Then blow away the drive partitions

 

[Zulu8]

do i use Linux fdisk to recreate partitions in FAT?

 

[BCYL]

You can pop in the win98 startup disk and use the fdisk on it to nuke the linux partitions and create new ones...

 

[Zulu8]

BCYL,
my Win98 startup disk won't work. Cause I think linux changed the filesystem and changed my cylinders or something. I need to know how to use the linux fdisk to basically erase everything

 

[Priit]

You probably should use Linux f-disk, cause the one with Winblows might be too stupid (I don't remember exactly, but AFAIK M$-fdisk couldn't delete extended partition when there was no FAT16/32 partitions) Under linux, just delete all partitions, create new over all harddrive and set system-ID to WIN95 FAT32 (LBA) (probably). Then boot from floppy, format HDD and install Winblows... as simple as that 🙂

 

[Wik]

If you want a dumb mans cure for fixing your hard drive, go to www.maxtor.com and download the MaxBlast hard drive utility. Just boot up to this floppy and you get a graphical interface to format and partition any drive. This will fdisk the mbr also. A friend of mine had the same problem and I just gave him my Floppy that came with a hard drive and he was able to get rid of Linux and format to fat 32 in minutes.

fdisk /mbr and then regular fdisk should do it though.

Make sure you have the bios set for boot floppy enabled and also have the A: drive the first bootable drive.