SATA HD - Linux - Windows Help
 

I've switched back and forth, declaring im through with windows, only to return back to it. Anyways, this time I completely wiped off my Win XP installation and installed Slackware 9.1 I made my linux partition and swap partition. I have a 160 gb sata hd, and I tried using fdisk /dev/hdi1 with the boot cd for slack and erased both partition and make a partition of 0 or free space. so I switch boot devices in bios and try to installed win xp but in setup it tells me no hard disk detected. strange, as I had installed win xp previous time as a fresh install. I tried booting with a win 98 disk and used fdisk /mbr after that i rebooted and used fdisk again , made my primary dos partition, so it finishes and I look at current partitions and it shows my dos partition as 23GB when it should be 160 and under system type it says unknown. So how do I get linux off my hd?? any help would be great!!

Anyway you can do a low level format? I don't know how... Can you maybe get a linux boot floppy like zool and use linux's fdisk?

fat 32
 

I don't remember exactly, but i think there is a limitation on the size partition windows 98 will make. You may want to try to reinstall XP.

As for getting rid of unwanted partitions, linux has a powerful tool called dd that will solve that. bear in mind this is if you want to destroy all data and near the beginning of the drive (mbr, partition table, everything).

dd of=/dev/hda if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=20

I don't remember how much space the beginning of the drive requires, the above example kills the first 20 MB (way overkill, I know). With the partition table wiped clean, there will be no residual linux to give you troubles.

of = drive you want to overwrite (not partition, the drive itself)
if = what to overwrite it with.
bs = block size
count = number of blocks


You can use a linux boot diskette as was recommended, or a bootable CD (such as knoppix, from www.knoppix.org) to get at it. You need to be root, I believe.

Good luck, I hope you haven't given up on linux. It is nice to have a windows installation around to start with though. :)