right now i'm running tao linux on a 2.8ghz/512ddr/80gb system, and being dissapointed at the distro (and that world of warcraft is not readily compatible with linux) i decided to set up a dual boot fc3 and windows xp.

The question that comes in is how to format my hard drive, i know it may not be necessary, but a clean whipe when the opportunity presents itself isn't really a bad thing. Essentially i'd just like to know how to easy format my hard drive, so i can go back over and re-write my partition tables and all that good fun afterwards. the only way i really know is through dos, and a dos boot disk does not allow me to actually do anything on a linux partition. once again, i do realise its not entirely necessary, but its something that i'd like to do and would be good to know if something where to occur that required it, thanks!

Use format under dos or windows. Or under Linux use fdisk or cfdisk with mkfs. with fdisk you can only create partitions and write them to the harddisk.

the XP install will nuke any data anyway. there's no benefit in formatting things, as formatting is within partitions, and you're gonna nuke them anyway. dos fdisk should let you delete non-fat partitions without problem. I know you're asking how to do it anyway.. in which case use a live CD or rescue CD... but.. really it's pointless.

the futility of it all i realise, but call it curiosity or just format-happy. thanks

ok, now i have an actual problem; i take the windows cd, set my bios to boot from it, no bananas. i go on my brother's computer and make a boot disk, boot it from that. so far so good, now it refuses to recognise any command i put in it. it won't change the directory, i can't use fdisk, nothin. i am now stuck, apart from going and installing fedora first i'm out of ideas.

Warcraft 3 is compatible with linux using Cedega. I recently played a 4 player game on a linux network. However, cedega does not like onboard video drivers, but plays well with nvidia video card.

The correct way to do this is: Install Windows first using your windows CD and see if it can format your hard drive completely. If it can leave empty space on the end for linux, better. If it can't, no problem.

Then insert your linux CD and install it. All linux installers that I ever used (Conectiva, Red Hat, Mandrake) will set up the dual boot automaticaly.

Felipe

firstly; its not warcraft 3 that i want to play, its world of warcraft, but thats neither here nor there. i tried booting up windows from the install cd, nothing. i tried booting up from the windows boot disk, and dos refuses to except any commands, nor recognize any drives. i just finished reinstalling fc3 so i at least have that for a while, but it was suggested by someone to updated my bios drivers and try then. i intend to do that, but any other suggestions are helpful.

hm, perhaps a dumb question but it needs must be asked -- you don't have two cd drives do you? with bios tryin to boot from the wrong one?

when you try booting from the windows install cd, what do you get? nothing at all? bluescreenofdeath? console? normal boot without cd?

also, is your windows boot disk a recovery floppy, DOS bootable, or something else?

Lol, not tryin to tear you apart here -- just like some specifics to make life easier

no problem ;-) the disk is a dos bootable disk, and i do not have two cd drives. when it tries to boot from cd, it says BOOTING FROM CD: and then skips down a line and starts booting linux.

ok, when I boot from my installer disk, I have to hold the 'c' button when i turn on the computer in order to boot from the CD (this is my specific BIOS -- doesn't look like you need to do this).. Then Windows installer comes up saying, "Press any key to begin Windows Installer" or something to that effect, and I need to hit a key to enter the windows installer, otherwise it will boot into grub as usual, so on and so forth. Try pressing a key at that "Booting from CD" screen, in case the message is supposed to come up and doesn't.


Good luck