Partition problems
 

I decided to fool around with Linux Mandrake 7.2. I installed it, then tryed installing some packages that came with it. I found that my CD-ROM drive or my cat scrathed one of the CDs so bad, it didn't work. Then, I decided to reinstall Windows ME (pure evil!) because school was starting up and I have many reports that need to be typed in my immediate future.

The problem is, I put in my Windows Recovery CD and it gave me an error about the HDD that Linux was on couldn't be detected. I set the drive as a slave and booted up Windows on my other HDD to see if it was there. It wasn't. Then, when I put my Recovery CD back in, it said to use FDisk. Same problem. Couldn't detect the HDD. How do I install Windows ME on this HDD without using a floppy disk (the drive is broken)?

-Thanks

From what I remember Windows needs a formatted partition to install (and it should be of the right type). So you'd need to remove the Linux partitons. You may use the Mandrake installation disk, I think there is rescue mode (but I used that version so long ago that I don't remember) and use first fdisk to remove the partitions and create new ones (Windows type) or change the type (fdisk can do it: fdisk /dev/hda then 't' option) and then mkfs.vfat to format.

OK, thank you. I'll have to try that now. I was just using the wrong commands for FDisk. It's not a program I've used very often.