hard disk partitioning
 

i need serious help. I have win XP on one partition of my hard disk about 15Gb and red hat 7.3 on the other 20Gb and now i want to format my whole hard disk to make a full 45Gb again, but in windows i cant see the linux partion and visa versa. How do i get a clean hard disk with nothing on it???
please help my mom and dad or going crazy!!!!!:(

:newbie:

Hi

Make a bootable floppy or cd w/ windows and boot from it. once booted from the floppy (or cd) type fdisk, got to erase partitions and delete all partitions listed there, then make a primary partition and give all capacity to it. Reboot comp (from floppy again) and format disk. Install your OS.

Azael

Problem: If you have Linux partitions, you cannot remove them with DOS/Win fdisk (or at least you couldn't - I don't know about the situation with XP) If you still have your RH install CD you can boot from there and erase all partitions, either by going through the install procedure until you get to DiskDruid, or by booting into rescue mode and using Linux's fdisk.

I recommend using Thymox's method, Linux's fdisk is more versatile and WILL see all partitions regardless of type.

I proposed fdisk because its faster rather than waiting for distro-cd to boot. And yes you can erase partitions w/ fdisk. Go to delete partitions option, then select delete non-windows (or fat partitions dont remember exactly tho) and all linux partitions will be listed there. Im using a windo$Me boot disk.

Azael

You can´t with a win98 bootdisk. If you list the partitions information, it can see the non-windows partitions, but if you try to erase them, it says that there isn´t any partition´s to remove, typically microsoft. I normally use the bootcd (in my case a debian) and then press enter to install. When it ask the first question i go to another terminal and use cfdisk (or fdisk) from there and erases all the partitions.

or you can try "fips"... I am pretty sure that it'll see all of the partitions... it's from gnu. you put it onto a windows boot disk and boot off of that... just read the doc's, you'll see

Here's a shot
 

Linux, despite being very hep to almost any partition under the sun can choke a bit on NTFS that XP uses. The way to do this is through XP :

Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management

You will see graphically your drives and partitions. Right click and splat.

Mind you XP might get a bit funny about this ... perhaps this is not the whole solution but give that a look.