Problems uninstalling linux

Hello everybody:

I have a quite weird situation. I want to uninstall linux from my computer at home, but certain things are just not right. I have 4 partitions in the hard disk, 3 of them accesible from windows (2 NTFS and 1 FAT32) and 1 from Linux (extended) (Mandrake 10). I know (because I've searched another forums) that one of the best procedures to uninstall linux is just to format the partition where linux is and then reconstruct the MBR using "fdisk /mbr". Well, here is where the problem comes. I started my PC with PartititonMagic with the intention of formating the Linux partition, but PartitionMagic shows that there is only ONE hard drive with only ONE partition. The partition that PartitionMagic sees is "Partition unidentified, type 44", which I have no idea what it means. So, I tried to format the Linux partition from the "computer managment" inside windows, but the option to format the partition is not available. Instead, only "delete partition" is available.

So, after all this, here is my question. How can I unistall Linux? if I delete the partition using the "computer managment" on windows can I format it later and use it with windows? I am not quite sure if I've explained myself clearly (sorry for the english) but I'll really appreciate some feedback on this...

Thanks to everybody...

Charnoke.

#362475

the disk management tool in windows cannot understand ext2, ext3, reiserfs or any partition thats not windows. therefore it shows up as an unknown partition.

if you do not have any sensitive data on those partitions you can safely delete them. it will show up as free space on disk management and you can make new ntfs/fat32 partitions in that space

in a nutshell - yes, go ahead and delete the partitions, you can then make a new partition

be sure to check that it is labelled Healthy (unknown partition)

#362480

thanks... i'll try that

edit: OK, I tried to fo what thehunderthone said but it doesn't work. I cannot delete the "logical drive" from the windows "computer managment" console. Does anybody else has another idea... i will really appreciate it... thanks...

edit 2: Sorry guys... I tried again to format the logical drive using the "computer managment" on windows. This time worked smoothly, thanks to thehundredthone for the tips.

Now, I come to another problem. I kwew that using "fdisk /mbr" the MBR can be reconstructed, and with this getting rid of LILO. Well, I tried to do it, but fdisk is telling me that the original MBR record cannot be saved. So, it does nothing. This means that I still have LILO when I boot the PC, but I have only windows to boot with (Linuc partition is gone...). So, does somebody know another method to get rid of LILO and have the computer boot smootly with windows?

Thanks to everybody again...

#362743

You can do the following:

Boot from your Windows installation CD

Instead of an install, choose 'repair console' (have your administrator password ready)

enter:

fixboot

fixmbr

reboot.

If it does not work if you have XP Home, install a new XP in the partition that contained Linux, this will also add your old XP in the boot.ini and destroy the new installation from your old one.

#362822

thanks... the console mode method fixed it... thanks again...

#365044