I mucked around with my partitions and MBR too much...

[konichiwa]

...so I think I should do a low level format. I have an IBM drive, and IBM's program, WIPE, only works on drives up to 8GB (or so the IBM page says). What should I do? Fdisk doesn't really work, it's sort of strange, because I have some Linux (non-DOS) partitions that it won't even recognize to wipe.

Anyone got any suggestions?

 

[LocutusX]

When Mandrake screwed up my system (I saw your thread in OS) I saved the day by running one of those single-floppy-distro Linuxes (sp) (I think it was called Joe's Single Floppy Linux Distro or something similarly exciting) and using the linux fdisk util - which is much more potent than DOS fdisk - to wipe everything off my hard drive. Well not really wipe. I actually managed to get rid of linux and resurrect Win2K, and it ran as perfect as it did before the Mandrake Encounter (tm).

Good luck...

 

[konichiwa]

Bump...any simpler solutions?

 

[pulpp]

get Ranish Parition Manager, its an excellent freeware, will detect the linux parition and remove it and fix your problem hopefully

 

[WildDreamer]

You might try this little DEBUG trick:

Erase All Partition Information

 

[Topochicho]

download aefdisk. use the delall switch to completely wipe all partitions of any type.

 

[cableguy]

Or you can use Delpart.

A dos based utility you can use with a dos boot disk that will wipe UNIX and NTFS partitions.
Then repartition with your normal method.

 

[Raincity]

The IBM drive fitness test will erase your mbr and kill all your partition architecture and do a low level format on the whole drive if thats what you want.

Rain

 

[Zach]

Use a software low level format utility. You just need to let it run a few seconds, that will kill the MBR and partition tables. Dead. Period. End of story.