How to cleanly delete Linux partitions and install XP and multi Linux OS's on them.
Posted 07-01-2010 at 09:50 PM by navneethr
Hello,
Thanks for your posts. It helped me in getting the solution I wanted. Here is what I finally did...
Deleting the partitions via XP or the 98 bootable CD was not clean and these programs could not cleanly delete the Linux partitions. THe linux partitions have to be deleted via the Linux programs itself.
Procedure:
I used the fedora disk and went into rescue mode. I used the skip option which prevented it from mounting any filesystems and went to the system prompt.
I then used the fdisk option
fdisk /dev/sda
It reported to me the existing partition info I had.
I then used p or list or m (not sure) to see the various options.
Based on this I used the d option (for deleting the partitions)
I entered 2 and 1 to delete the 2 partitions.
I again used the p option to print the partition info...which clearly showed that I now had no partition.
Finally I used the w option to write this info to the hard disk. (without using this option nothing really happens).
I could have done the same if I had a bootable Linux CD which would have got me directly to the system prompt instead of using the rescue option of the fedora install discs.
I then booted with an XP CD. Now the system clearly showed that there was 80 GB space available. Deleting the partitions via XP earlier was giving ambigious reports at this stage.
I used 10 GB to create the first primary partion and formatted it for NTFS. I created another logical parttion of around 20 GB and the rest I left free (50GB).
I installed XP on the 10 GB. Went into Control panel ..maintenance--disk-manangement and formatted the logical partion too.
I then booted with the Fedora disk and installed Fed on the remained free space. Everything went very smoothly.
I use Fedora 95% of the times, but sometimes I need XP for some of my old data.
In the future when I want to install another Linux OS I will go into XP and delete the logical drive which will mean 20 GB of free space and then I will tell the new Linux CD to use this free space.
Hope this will help the others. It helped me. THanks everyone for your help.
Thanks for your posts. It helped me in getting the solution I wanted. Here is what I finally did...
Deleting the partitions via XP or the 98 bootable CD was not clean and these programs could not cleanly delete the Linux partitions. THe linux partitions have to be deleted via the Linux programs itself.
Procedure:
I used the fedora disk and went into rescue mode. I used the skip option which prevented it from mounting any filesystems and went to the system prompt.
I then used the fdisk option
fdisk /dev/sda
It reported to me the existing partition info I had.
I then used p or list or m (not sure) to see the various options.
Based on this I used the d option (for deleting the partitions)
I entered 2 and 1 to delete the 2 partitions.
I again used the p option to print the partition info...which clearly showed that I now had no partition.
Finally I used the w option to write this info to the hard disk. (without using this option nothing really happens).
I could have done the same if I had a bootable Linux CD which would have got me directly to the system prompt instead of using the rescue option of the fedora install discs.
I then booted with an XP CD. Now the system clearly showed that there was 80 GB space available. Deleting the partitions via XP earlier was giving ambigious reports at this stage.
I used 10 GB to create the first primary partion and formatted it for NTFS. I created another logical parttion of around 20 GB and the rest I left free (50GB).
I installed XP on the 10 GB. Went into Control panel ..maintenance--disk-manangement and formatted the logical partion too.
I then booted with the Fedora disk and installed Fed on the remained free space. Everything went very smoothly.
I use Fedora 95% of the times, but sometimes I need XP for some of my old data.
In the future when I want to install another Linux OS I will go into XP and delete the logical drive which will mean 20 GB of free space and then I will tell the new Linux CD to use this free space.
Hope this will help the others. It helped me. THanks everyone for your help.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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never guessed windowz is THAT WAY STUPID it can't DELETE some random partition. Oh, the great LOL. I mean, it's not just great LOL. It's a LOL MONSTER.
What are you using windowz for? Games? Did you tested them on wine or virtualbox/kvm? Why use real install?Posted 07-02-2010 at 07:39 AM by Web31337 
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I still need to use WinXP from time to time and find that for most things, (including iTunes and and iPhone over USB), VirtualBox has served me well. I have five partitions:
1: Swap
2: Ubuntu 10.04
3: Ubuntu 9.10
4: Data (ext3)
5: VirtualBox
I suppose I could set up an NTFS data partition should I need it. In the VirtualBox partition I store my Windows XP virtual machine images and snapshots.
Of late, VirtualBox was acquired by Sun which in turn was acquired by Oracle. The rate of development and enhanced stability continues to improve.Posted 07-04-2010 at 11:09 AM by dom3lmr
Updated 07-04-2010 at 11:11 AM by dom3lmr (typos)
