Why do you have to reformat after uninstalling linux?
 

Hi everyone,

Just want to ask this question which has come up while reading posts on this site.

When someone is uninstalling linux, why do they have to reformat their hd after they use fdisk /mbr to be able to reboot into Windows?

I was messing around with Mandrake 8.1 recently and got through the fdisk /mbr and deleting the linux partitions in the mandrake setup program and windows seems to see everything ok. Do I need to reformat anyway?

Thanks!

Windows formats partitions using FAT32 or NTFS. Linux usually uses ext2. In order to write from windows to a previous Linux partition you will need to reformat the partition to a file system that windows recognizes.