my friend installed slackware on my computer. he didn't know what he was doing and now a lot of my hardware doesn't work(mouse, keyboard, etc...). i'm a newbie myself and don't really have time to figure out what he did wrong and fix it. he partitioned my hd to install linux, how do i switch the file system back to ntfs without losing my data? tia

2 Stupid Questions-

linux data or windows data?

and did your frend set it up as a dual boot system leaving the ntfs partition by resizing it or did your friend simply replace it with a linux filesystem?

by the way i am assuming you are going to be putting windows on the machine.

1) copy your data somewhere else
2) delete partitions, create new.
3) (and do that when you install windows, if you do)
4) copy your data back.

If Linux was setup properly and you want to keep it:

* Linux does not support ntfs naively to write to use captive.
* All YOUR files will be on a separate partition mounted as /home. Reinstall linux at will just don't format /home all YOUR files will be left intact. KDF can tell which partition contains /home (/dev/hdx#).

If you want to migrate back to windows and the windows partition was deleted to make room for linux.

* If you want to recover your windows file good luck. SOME data will be on the disk but recovering it is not easy.

If you want to migrate back to windows and the windows partition was NOT deleted to make room for linux.

* Do as the previous poster suggested copy everything to some other media reinstall windows and copy back.

- or -

* Assuming you have no data from linux you wish to keep. Use partition magic or some other program to reparation your drive deleting the linux partitions and then resize NTFS to fill the drive.

Some Vendors of computers ( hp, dell ) as of late do not come with restore cd's but use a small partion on the hard drive containing windows. If this was removed have fun. You will need to talk to your computer's OEM and convince them that you need the cd.

If you are still interested in linux Mandrake is much easier to configure than Slack-ware try that instead.