Recovering HD space used by Linux

[qacwac]

I've got a 27 gig Maxtor drive that last time I partioned it I left about 7 gigs unpartitioned for Mandrake. Now I need the space back. I've already tried reformatting and it only shows up at 20 gigs.

I'm about to install Win98 and then upgrade to WinXP.

Thanks.

 

[Need4Speed]

you need to delete the linux partitions...then format them

 

[qacwac]

How do I delete them? fdisk doesn't see them.

 

[Need4Speed]

it should, but you need to use "display non-DOS partitions"

 

[redbeard1]

Sometimes fdisk doesn't see some linux partitions even when you choose delete non-dos partition. Partition Magic would see it and delete it. The other thing would be to download the drive makers diagnostic disk and run the "write zeros" or "low level format" feature. This would reset the drive back to a base setting and get the full size available.

 

[MattM350]

You can always remove the linux drive with winxp after you have it installed. It would probably be the easiest way to solve your problem, after you install winxp just right click My Computer click Manage and under Storage there should be Disk Management, you can delete the linux partitions here.