On my other computer I have two hard drive, the Master has only windows on it. The Slave has Ubuntu and Debian. How can I format the slave drive?

assuming you are sure you want to delete Ubuntu and Debian to leave linux... or just install another linux distro hopefully:

You can do many things:
delete all the partition, then when you make another partition on top of them, format that partition.
OR
format the existing partitions.
OR
scrub that surface with zeros using dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/harddrive_name

delete/create partitions using cfdisk or fdisk
format using mkfs.NameOfFS

To amplify the remarks of Mimethebrain: use cfdisk to delete the partitions on the disk, re-write the partition table after removing all the partitions, then reboot before doing anything else. In my experience, you must re-boot before trying to create new partitions and format them. If you don't re-boot immediately, you may end up with inconsistent partitions (I struggled with that for a couple of days - SuSE 9.3 Pro).

After re-booting, make new partitions. After making the last partition, write the partition table, then re-boot again.

Then use the mkfs tools to format the partitions for the filesystem of choice.

Then install new distros or do whatever trips your trigger.

Alright, i'm not trying to install a new distribution to clear it up. I want to tottaly delete EVERYTHING on that hard drive. And remove it to put in my other PC. I'm a bit confused...could I format it from windows? Like get a copy of WipeXP and wipe it out? Ooooorrrr....

If I delete the partitions wouldn't it just automatically go into windows again?
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And nooo! I'll never get rid of Linux.

from windows... it's a bit more difficult, if you have XP, you can use the partition manager in there to delete them and make a new one. Other versions of windows will require Partition Magic. If you get a copy of windows, you could delete it from the install disk. If you delete the partitions, Windows won't install on it overnight.

theres a partition editor in XP? Where!?

XP has graphical fdisk tool as well as the console command.
It does just the basic functions i.e. Create, format, delete. It will label linux partitions as unknown but you should be able to delete them.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm

In xp
click start,
then right click My computer
then click manage
then click storage
then click disk management
then right click whatever Linux partition not assigned a drive letter
then click delete partition

You can then create NTFS partitions and quick format them.

Should be able to do all the above in under 5 minutes.

If you have installed a bootloader to the Master disk's MBR, then you may run into problems on rebooting. Best to run "fixmbr" from within Windows too before rebooting.

Norton Ghost recovery disk will fix the mbr is you copy zeros on top of it.

Nope. I installed everything on my slave. So once I format them I should be able to boot back right into my dads crummy windows.


YOU.GUYS.ROCK!!!!!!

Yes, correct, format first, install after, and you can get back in the OS.