Getting Rid of Linux

[Nick]

Alright, I've asked about removing Mandrake before, and I was told to use fdisk /mbr. Well, I'm on Win98 and I click restart in DOS mode and it does not work. Blank screen and my keyboard doesn't work :(. I tried just deleting Linux. That was hell, I had to reinstall it because it totally screwed up GRUB or whatever it is called.

Anyway, untill now, I had not really needed the extra HDD that I have, but now I do. I've only have 3 of 30 gigabytes left and I can install Linux on my extra computer but Mandrake is sitting in its 20GB home and I need that 20GBs. So how can I get rid of Mandrake and get my extra 20 gig HDD back?

[thuglife]

There is another way but I would just put a boot up disk in the computer and have it load command.com and take me to MS-DOS using the boot disk and just format from there. =)

[niv]

GRUB sucks monkey balls.

You can reinstall a form of Windows to say nuts to GRUB, then backup everything you need. After that, format all the drives, and do a clean fdisk. Delete all partitions and create new ones.

[Nick]

Backing up 20GBs of data isn't something that I want to do :(.

[Rick]

Simply typing fdisk /mbr will clear your boot partition and delete the dual boot segment of your HD, but linux, the linux partition, and the space it occupies are all still there and not accessable to windows. You will also need to reformat the linux partition to FAT before windows will be able to access it. However, this will still leave you with a two partition drive. The only way to open the full amount of space on your HD is to use a second party partition utility such as partition magic, or even the utility on the linux install disk that created the linux partition in the first place. Simply have it delete the linux partition and to expand the FAT partition to utilize the entire disk.

[Todd]

That's solid advice from Rick. I don't believe you can resize partitions in fdisk but you can delete the partitions there. Then you could always create new partitions to use the other part of your hard drive.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q171611
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q247804

If you want the easiest way out buy Partition Magic for a point and click interface to deleting the linux partitions and resizing your FAT32 partition. http://www.powerquest.com

[Epgs]

or go to linuxmax.net and post your question there. they are good people and will help you.