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a customer brought in a laptop which he tried to install linux. couldnt get it configured right and wants win98 put back on. the problem is when i try to delete the partitions in fdisk, they wont delete, i have tried to delete everyone, there are 2 partitions one is about 98% of the drive. the other is only a few megs. does anyone know how i delete the partitions, will i need a linux disc?
If all else fails, get the utility from the hard drive manufacturer's website, and do a low level format- write zeros to the drive, re-fdisk and reformat for windows.
A quick and dirty meathod is llformat,
but if available I would reccommend
Powerquest Partition Magic or similar software.
There is a handy little utility out there called delpart. Here is a link to find it.
bootdisk.com
Try using Zap from the Windrivers hard drive utility section....it'll do the job.
Well I just had to deal with this exact same issue, and I found a link on the web to use some utilitly from symantec (I found a download for it) that deleted all the partitions, but unfortunately I dont remember what it was called, but it worked beautifully and I knew nothing about linux either.
LL Format and all those other neat tools are well and good, but if you want to remove a Linux partition the easiest way would be with Linux FDISK... included on your bootdisk. Don't have one? Make one from the install CD (RAWRITE cdrom.img) or download it from any Linux website (redhat, debian, etc.)
Try ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-current/bootdsks.144/
Or, there was an old DOS program called DELPART.EXE in old versions of Norton utilities... would take off NTFS, Linux, FAT32 partitions even if you booted from DOS 6.0
is there any advantage to this grphical Delpart? My version is 14k dated 1996 this thing is 124k unknown date. Lot of floppy consumed just for a gui.
Take PQmagic.
It will Certainly do the Job.
just FYI ...
DOS Fdisk is slightly gai.. it will refuse to see more than one extended partition, hence, it will see a non-dos partition (ie unix) but wont be able to kill it.
www.qdigrp.com
The have a low level format utility that fits on a floppy and is free too. It will easily fix your dilemma. <IMG SRC="smilies/wink.gif" border="0">
DELPART.EXE is the utility I was referring to , and worked great.
Quote:
Originally posted by sdrawkcab:
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Or, there was an old DOS program called DELPART.EXE in old versions of Norton utilities... would take off NTFS, Linux, FAT32 partitions even if you booted from DOS 6.0</STRONG>
delpart
thanks guys, worked like a charm, any time your in the niagara region, i owe you a beer <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">