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Hi..I've now used Win and Xandros for some time. I'm fed up with windows.. Can I safely format my harddrive from windows without it interfering with my Xandros....?
I want to just use Xandros... no more Win...What do I do?
Yes, you can format the Windows hard disk partitions.
First unmount any Windows partitions you have mounted, eg. with
Code:
umount /mnt/c
The easiest reliable way is to (as root) go into
Code:
fdisk
and delete all your windows partitions. Don't delete any non-Windows ones such as Linux or swap partitions. Then create a new partition in its place for either ext3 or reiserfs, and save the partition table.
Format the new partition with
Code:
mkext3fs
or
Code:
mkreiserfs
passing it the name of the device-file for the new partition. Then create an entry in /etc/fstab for the new filesystem.
Some distros provide an automated mechanism for this; I don't know about Xandros.
Note that, for SCSI disks, if you have any Linux filesystems after the Windows ones on the same disk, the partition numbers may change (unless you create the same number of partitions). You may be better off doing this from a rescue disk just to be safe, if this is the case.
How do I see what is on the windowsdisk? I need a file or two from there... I just got it removed from the startup and inside the system by pressing 'disconnect' in the menu. remembered that I really need those files..Is it to late? and how do I delete the windows partition with fdisk and give all the space to linux?
Thanks
This is what I get on the table:
isk /dev/hda1: 104.8 GB, 104839386624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12745 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
I'm fed up with windows and I want to just use XandrOS ...
I have it installed. I selected c: in Xandros and pressed 'disconnect' so I can no longer fing c: on the list in Linux or during startup.. Now I want to format it and get the space reserved for Win over to linux using fdisk.. Thing is I've never used fdisk in linux, so I'm not sure what I'm doing.
If possible please tell me how to retrieve some of the files from my winpartition, it hasnt been formatted yet.
I could really need a step-by-step here...tnx
Disk /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/disc: 120.0 GB, 120000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14589 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 * 1 12746 102382213+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 12747 14589 14803897+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part5 12747 12810 514048+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part6 12811 14589 14289786 83 Linux
Linux uses a different way of hard disk naming. Your primary master HD is /dev/hda. Your C: is /dev/hda1 (first partition).
To see it in linux you have to edit the /etc/fstab file. To see your HD add a line to it for your windows partition.
Mine for example is:
Quote:
/dev/hda1 /windows vfat defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 is the partition. /windows is the folder I made to mount the windows partition in. vfat is the filesystem. defaults is the default settings for what users can and can't do. I don't know what the zeros are for.
To mount your HD for the first time.
Code:
mount /dev/hda1
or use
Code:
mount -a
which will check all your mount points and mount if needed,
fdisk in linux is a bit different from the windows one. However I'd recommend doing it with parted (command line) or qtparted (GUI). Be sure to read the readme and manual pages before you start and backup anything you want to keep.
How do I use fdisk in linux to format the harddrive?
I want to format the partition containing windows as I'm fed up with it.
I use xandros but I only get access to 13gb out of 104gb.. I want the rest..
I no longer have any access to windows or what is in that partition as I managed to do something wrong. But now I just want to get it overwith and continiue just using XandrOS.
I try pressing D in fdisk to delete, but I get this msg:
No partition is defined yet!
1.How do I define a partition?
And after that how do I make it into a linux drive,so I have access to all my hdspace?
The old sys on the partition is WinXp SP2....
This is some of what I can see, but I dont know what it means..
Disk /dev/hda1: 104.8 GB, 104839386624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12745 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is in my Fstab file... Dont know if it's of any use, but I'll put it here just in case...
try cfdisk command and check out the manual for usage by doing
man cfdisk
It will show you the whole listing of your hard drive(s) and give u various options. You must do this as root.
Disk Drive: /dev/hda
Size: 120000000000 bytes, 120.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 14589
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hda1 Boot Primary NTFS 104839,42
hda5 Logical Linux swap 526,42
hda6 Logical Linux ReiserFS 14632,78
[Bootable] [ Delete ] [ Help ] [Maximize] [ Print ]
[ Quit ] [ Type ] [ Units ] [ Write ]
Is it safe to delete hda1? And after that will it automaticly become a linux partition?
You might have ur boot loader on hda1, and you will have to reinstall it on the new partition. You can safely delete the partition but u will have to create one with linux file system. It will not automatically become linux. Once u delete it, it will give u an option to create one.
HDA1 is your Windows c:\ drive. If you don't want it then, yes, it's safe to delete it. It won't become a Linux drive until you format it and mount it.
It's dafe to delete, but you don't really need to.
You don't even necessarily need to change the
partition-type (which you could) and just format
the thing using mkreiserfs. And whether it gets
picked up automagically depends on your distro.
In Slack (or any other distro I respect :}) you'll
have to manually add it to /etc/fstab and create/
assign it a mount-point.
How is it still possible to mount it as c:\windows , cause I cant fint it in my list in Linux.
I could have use for some of the files there...I really dont know much about this.. Really newbie here, I know my way around Windows, but wanna learn this better.. And I no longer have any access to Windows
And the more step-by-step the better because I'm quite new to doing these things in Linux..
I tried putting it in fstab but I dont really know what I'm doing, so this happened.
XANAK8WJM42:~# mount /dev/hda1
[mntent]: warning: no final newline at the end of /etc/fstab
mount: can't find /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part1 in /etc/fstab or /etc/m
something like this; /dev/hda1 /mnt/ntfs ntfs ro 1 0
and the no end line in fstab just press enter at the end of the last line so it is blank at the end.
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