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Uninstallation of Linux OS

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DemonicPenguin

Member
On my main desktop I'm currently dual-booting with Windows XP Home Edition and the latest Ubuntu release. I've been given the chance to receive a decent laptop that I felt would be a good testbed for Linux instead of messing with the more important files on my desktop. The only problem being is that the last couple times I've tried uninstalling a linux distro I've had bad luck. For instance Windows wouldn't boot afterwards.
So my question is, what's the safest way to uninstall a linux distro?

Thank you. :Q
 
First, I run the recovery tool from the XP cd, which you can get to by booting to the CD, then type in fixmbr when you get to the command prompt to restore the Windows boot loader, then once Windows will boot, delete all the linux partitions. I've found Partition Magic to be extremely helpful in doing this, but there are plenty of other ways such as using the Knoppix live cd which has a partitioning tool. Make backups of your important stuff before fooling with the partitions.
 
I booted with my Windows XP Home restore disk and navigated to the command prompt. But whenever I type in "fixmbr" it says that it's a "bad command or file name". Am I doing something wrong?

// Edit //
I don't have a Windows XP Install Disk, all I have is a supplied Recovery Disk. It seems that the only drive in which I'm allowed to run the command prompt from is A:\ and whenever I try to navigate to D:\ , E:\, or C:\ it says that it's not a recognized drive.
 
boot up with a dos boot disk or windows start up disk. At command prompt, type "fdisk /mbr" no more boot loader.

in order to get rid of the linux partitions, partition magic is very useful. Either that or delete all the partitions on your disk and recreate them.
 
If you're looking at a command prompt and trying to get it to accept a command that's not working, you can always type in help to see a list of commands that you could use.
 
wud really help to what linux distro u installed but basically u have to boot XP cd and in recovery console type "fixmbr" and reboot then in windows ... using partition magic or ComputerManagement delete the Linux partition to freeup space.
 
I dual-boot my work pcs and I would definitely recommend using PartitionMagic (even though it has been absorbed by Symantec) next time you want to try this. It's got resizing support for NTFS and ext2fs I think.
 
"wud really help to what linux distro u installed but basically u have to boot XP cd and in recovery console type "fixmbr" and reboot then in windows ... using partition magic or ComputerManagement delete the Linux partition to freeup space."

I believe that I did describe the Linux distro I'm using. Just look closer in my first post. 🙂
And as for the fdisk /mbr command, it worked. Thank you for your help. 😀

By the way, is there a free partitioning tool that I can use to redistribute the unallocated space to my XP Partition? Partition Magic 8.0 won't allow me to apply the changes without purchasing it, and frankly, I don't really wish to buy software just for use one time.
 
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