I had red hat 9 linux installed as primary partion of the hd and i tried to remove it to install windows so i tried random things that people posted on other forums like fdisk and stuff because when i started windows cd and tried to format or install windows it screwed up (probly cause its scretched up) so i tried different ways of removing red hat. The first one i found was fdisk but it didnt work so i saw this thing fdisk /mdr and it worked for most people so i did that and now whatever i do nothing helps, cd screws up, cant format with a floppy cause i dont know the root drive name (not any of the letters i tried them all) when using windows me bootdisk and using the command sys c: it will not allow to format. is there any way to fix this problem or undo fdisk /mdr??? please help!

ok first and foremost the command is :
fdisk /mbr
not /mdr

secondly all "sys c:" does is copy system files (for example command.com) it does not format ...
the command "format c:" formats ...

secondly, just using the fdisk utility, you can go into the delete partitions menu (option 3 i think ?) and just remove non-dos partitions ... (which are the linux partitions)

i think your just getting your commands confused, and in that case
brush up on them, and then try again

mmmkay did that i think and now i tried installing windows 98 but it didnt work error writing to hard disk. i can not format the drive cause wen i go to the boot disk and start without cd support and i c A:\ i type C:\ or C: it wont switch the A:\ to a c so i cant format
i tried a different cd to install windows but it found an error also.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(edit)
i put on an old harddrive {a 4 gig} and im putting win xp home on it so i can format the other one and install xp on it then i can dual boot it.....
hope this works.

?? sure you can format ...

anyways, your going to have to boot up with your bootdisk and from the a: you will type :
fdisk
and like i said above, go to the delete partition menu, and then go to
delete non-dos partition, and then remove them ...
then it will tell you to reboot
then follow the same procedure and go into fdisk again
and make a new partition ... which is menu 1..
so you fire up fdisk and press :
ENTER for large disk support or whatever it says
menu 1 is default so press enter again
menu 1 is again default for primary partition so again press ENTER
then follow the steps and within seconds you will have a FAT32 partition ..
then when you reboot this time you will type :
format c:

did that and gave error that it could not find a partition named c:
its all good not tho (i think) it better be

i got xp on 4 gig and 80 gig is slave. i need to make it an fat32 but when i go to the bootdisk thing (using only the 80 gig) i go to delete non dos partition or sumtin and all it says is esc to return to menu or sumtin and it wont work so i reboot. i try again and this time to make the fat32 and when i go to the menu to create primary dos partition it gives me same thing and wont leme choose what kind to make and it does not make it. help