Help reformatting Linux drive...
 

Hello, I have 2 HDD. One has WinXP and the other has RH9. I want to reformat the RH9 drive so I can use it in windows. What do I use/do to reformat the drive? I have to boot RH9 with a floppy, and from there I normally use the RH GUI. Can I use a command from the Terminal? Do I have to be in root? When I login to the GUI as root, the terminal lists me as root and my ip address. Any help is appreciated!
THanks,
Chris

To convert a partition to Windows, you need to delete it and recreate it with fdisk, then format it. Run 'fdisk' or 'cfdisk' as root, delete the Linu partition, and create a Windows one (it is type 0c for FAT32). To format in FAT32, use 'mkdosfs -F 32' on the partition. If this is the partition RH is on, it can't delete it because it needs it to run. If this is the case, you will need a Linux bootdisk to do the job, or use Windows.
In Windows : Control Panel >> Computer Management >> Disk Management. From there you can delete the Linux partitions and create Windows ones. Then you can format the partition.

just to extend that reply - perhaps you could use the RH9 install CD to do the job if you don't have a bootdisk or a bootable CD like knoppix lying around (or even gentoo or something).
you could prob find a nice small CD image (~40Mb) of a linux distro that you can burn to do just this thing for you...

the number of times I have used linux to undo disk stuffups caused by *windows* is amazing.

*and* it's one thing for windows to not recognise non MS partitions, but quite another that they won't even recognise other MS formats! I somehow managed to get win2k to partition a disk with ntfs which it tehn wouldn't recognise and couldn't do a thing with. linux to the rescue. </rant>

This did it, but it wasn't in the above location. Thanks for the help!

Checked right now. For Win2k:
Control Panel >> Administrative Tools >> Computer Management >> Disk Management