Removing FC 6

[chris_pops 0]

So I want to remove Fedora Core 6 and reinstall Windows XP Pro so that other people in my house can use it. The main issue here is that I can't seem to get rid of Grub, or I can't replace it with the Windows boot. I've been to Microsoft's step by step instruction page on how to remove Linux, but it only works if it's the LILO boot loader. I'm completely lost right now, as I've tried so many different things that don't work in my situation. Right now FC6 is the only OS on the system and it won't let me boot up the Windows install CD. Sorry if the information is all mixed up, but I'm really frustrated right now. Any help would be much appreciated.

[danleff 0]

The Windows CD does not boot. as I assume that you allowed Fedora to take over the entire hard drive during the installation. Windows can't read Linux partitions, so the Windows CD dies, as it can't find any fat32 or NTFS partition on your hard drive.

 

The easiest way to do this now, without knowing what you already tried, is to grab the utility from the hard drive manufacturer for your hard drive and reformat the drive with one large NTFS or fat32 partition, then install Windows.

 

For example, if you have a Maxtor hard drive, use it's Maxblast utility to do the job. Of course, this assumes that you have another PC that you can download the software with and burn a cd.

 

The other method is to use the first Fedora boot cd and progress through the installation steps to the partitioning section. Choose custom partitioning and tell Fedora to format the drive to fat32. Allow the partitioning to occur, then stop the installation process once the drive is partitioned. Then install XP.

 

Finally, you could also download a Live cd of Knoppix or Mepis, then use the included partitioning utility (gparted) to format the drive to fat32. This assumes that you did not allow Fedora to use LVM partitions on the drive. I'm not sure if gparted can alter LVM partitions, but you could give it a try.

[chris_pops 0]

I brought the disk to my friends house and we formatted it to NTFS using the Windows XP format program. Didn't do the quick format or anything. When I brought it home and tried the Windows installation again, I got the same problem. Would my HDD's manufacturer program do it any differently? It's a Western Digital HDD.

[chris_pops 0]

UPDATE!!! I talked to one of my professors and he told me to use qtpart on knoppix. So i'm currently downloading a knoppix 5.1 iso. Is qtpart pretty straight-forward, or will it be confusing? If it's gonna be confusing, could I get a little instruction as to how to use it?

[peterh 1]

You do not necessarily need to format a drive, just delete ALL the existing partitions completely. You can use Ranish partition manager from http://www.ranish.com/part/. Then you can install Windows on the fresh disk, it will partition/format it during the installation.