Uninstalling mandrake 9 with partition magic
 

Hi all,
I would like to try another linux distro and would like to remove mandrake 9 from my machine and, temporarily, reallocate all of the harddisk space back to windows 98. If I use partition magic to delete all of the linux partitions and convert them back to FAT32, what will happen when I restart? Will the boot loader have been removed and will windows start as it use to? If I have to manually delete the boot loader using fdisk can someone explain how to do this or post a weblink that explains the process in detail?
Thanks in advance
Sat

The bootloader must be removed. If you installed LILO once only, you can use 'lilo -u' from Linux. If LILO was installed more than once, you need a Windows/DOS bootdisk, boot from it and then run
fdisk /mbr

Would it be OK to use the Microsoft floppy boot disk that came with my win 98. I've tried rebooting with it and get three options, the first two involve using the CDROM, the third I believe leaves me reading solely off the floppy with an A: prompt. How can I check if fdisk is available on this boot disk boot disk? Can i type fdisk to see if the command is recognised or would that do something disasterous?
Cheers

The disk gives you a few options. One is cdrom support, so you'll get a D: (or some other letter) for your cdrom. You don't need cdrom support, but it probably won't make a difference if you do it anyways. You probably shouldn't do the Quick or Minimal (or whatever it's called) because there are a lot of tools on the ramdisk that's loaded for the other options that won't be loaded if you choose this. Fdisk is on the bootdisk, but I'm not sure if it's in the ramdisk or not. If it's on the ramdisk, you'll need to choose one of the first 2 options to use it, if it's not (if you look on the floppy and see it), you can use the Quick option to use it.

"fdisk /status" just lists all the partitions (kind of like "fdisk -l" in linux). If you ever wonder about any dos command add a "/?" at the end (sort of works like "-h" in linux).