Erase and Reformat Hard Drive Software or iso?
 

I have tried many different kinds of Linux and every one of them always has a problem reading or finding my hard drive. I have a Windows 98SE. I was wondering if there was a program or an iso that I could burn to a cd to erase my entire hard drive and reformat it.

I have read how you can do it through MS-DOS mode, but I can not even boot into it.

Anyhelp would be great. Thanks

Try this:

man fdisk

--- rod.

erase / reformat
 

Is this an IDE device?

What are you trying to do? Do you want to remove W98.

Do you want to reformat and reinstall W98?

Are you trying to install linux alone?

Are you trying to dualboot a linux distro with W98?

Most linux distros can recognize and or reformat a HD with ease.

Most Windows boot disks will also reformat a HD.

As stated above, use fdisk or cfdisk to view your partitions.

I want to erase the hard drive and install windows xp. I think I already have erased windows 98 because it does not boot to it.

Get tom's root boot:

http://www.toms.net/rb/

This is a single floppy linux, which contains all of the tools required to partition a hard disk. Unless your disk is 'unusual' (eg external USB) in some way, you can simply create a single partition of a type suitable for loading Windows. You probably want HPFS/NTFS, or FAT32. It would likely be sufficient to simply remove all existing partitions. 'fdisk' is the tool you want to use.

--- rod.

Windows XP install will do everything for you. No need to format or erase anything.

Are you sure? I thought Windows would ignore any partitions of a type it does not recognize. Also, doesn't Windows fail if not on the first bootable partition?

--- rod.

Windows does not ignore partitions it cannot read. It usually wants to reformat these partitions. I understand this is going to be a XP-only box (why the question is in LQ harware forum??) so there is no question about multiple boot partitions. XP install will mark the install partition active and that's it.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Windows questions belong in General...