red hat needs to go because it is preventing me from using my windows recovert cds, linux is good but i find it less practical. ive looked at windows f disk, and partition magic and have even played with ranish partition manager. i need something that will delete my partitions, even linux because it has to be there but nothing pikcs it up.


spasibo!

Hello, and welcome to LQ. So you are wanting to simply remove your Linux partitions and donate the space back to winbloze, am I reading that correct?

If so, why won't fdisk work? winbloze or linux version?

Also, you said you checkout out PM and it didn't work, I think you may have used it wrong???

Unless you have got some really odd setup, any one of these programs *should* work just fine for removing partitions; so my question is, what is your partition setup, and what is your final desired outcome?

Maybe giving us an output of the result of typing fdisk -l in a linux bash prompt might help to show us what's going on right now.

Cool

ha ha winbloze, thats no bad. we all know linux is better its just that we all actually dont and settle for the ease of winbloze. anyway i am almost positive i have a hidden partition of linux, but i cant get to it. it was a dual boot on drive c with windows Me. i deleted Me with windows fdisk, but windows fdisk cannot delete linux partitions. so i believe it is on my hd somehwere giving me a hard time. and consequently i have no way of knowing it is there.

No problemo...

Do this:

1) Insert your Redhat install CD one last time and bootup.

2) When it gets to the installation screen, hit <CONTROL><ALT><F2>, this will take you to a second term.

BTW, you can skip these two steps if your linux is still bootable.

3) So, either in the installation terminal, or in a "normal" term with you "su"ed to root (type in "su", enter, your root password, enter) type in "fdisk /dev/hda"

Now it's my understanding that your hard drive is toast, if not it will be... So, Backup first mebbee?

4) With fdisk running, hit "p" then enter. This will print out the current partition list.

5) Hit "d" followed by the partition number, lather, rinse, repeat until you have deleted all of them.

6) This is the "are you REALLY sure" step, if so, hit "w" to write the changes to the partition table.

7) Cycle power, re-install Windows, live long and prosper.

If it still doesn't work, then please do what MasterC suggests and post your partition table for all to see.

As for hidden partitions, they exist to be sure, but mostly for Windows (none for linux).

But you can still create and delete even these partitions in linux. So I really don't think that this is the problem.

And don't get all of this confused with wiping out the bootloader which would require DOS's (ok, Windows) fdisk. Like this: "FDISK.EXE /MBR" (usually from a bootable floppy).


BTW, I'm having you use your Redhat CD since I'm pretty sure that you still have it. If not, then you will need to get something along the lines of a "Tom's Root-n-Boot" rescue disk. (http://www.toms.net/rb/) The Windows FDISK won't delete non-DOS partitions.


John

What version of PM are you using? I assure you that PM will deleete your linux partitions, hidden or not!

You could also fdisk /mbr to blow away the boot sector and then reinstall Windows as normal which will reformat the disk.

good luck!

to wipe out any paritions and boot records,
boot from a linux cdrom or what not,
go to a prompt
and
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

let it run a few seconds or however long you want, then
control-c or hit reset or whatever you want.