I've had so many problems dual booting that I'm not even gonna try any more. But now I have a problem getting back to where I was before...

I've got two hard drives in my machine. On hdd0 is Windows and hdd1 WAS Mandrake Linux. Linux got ALL messed up and is beyond bootable even WITH the CD's. My only option is a Format, but I can't boot to the drive long enough to do so.

Without downloading or buying any third party software, is there a way to reformat the second hard drive from inside Windows? Windows doesn't assign the drive a Letter since the partition isn't one recognized by windows itself. I want my second hard drive back in FAT32.

Hmm... are you booting the rescue mode on the CD?

What windows version are you using? W2K or XP disk manager might be able to delete a non DOS partition.

I know that the Win98 fdisk is able to delete non DOS partitions.
Once deleted you should be able to create and format a FAT32 partition.

Just boot the mandrake install cd, select "expert install" and when you get to the diskdrake section you can format your drive in whatever fs you want, exit the install, remove the mandrake cd and reboot.