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Legacy Forums => General Discussion (Legacy) => Topic started by: Daniel M on January 22, 2003, 08:43:15 AM

Title: delete linux partition
Post by: Daniel M on January 22, 2003, 08:43:15 AM

How do i delete the partition e-smith has made on my hard drive?

I am ditching the e-smith and want to use the hard drive for a Windows application.

When I fdisk the hard drive, i get a logical drive that's 100% of the disk size labeled " * Remote * " and fdisk will not accept that as an acceptable volume label.

I just want to delete this damn logical drive!!!!

thanks

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Rick on January 22, 2003, 02:37:39 PM

http://www.ntfaq.com/download/delpart.exe


this is a very easy to use application which will clear all partition information

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Johan on January 22, 2003, 07:47:49 PM

Hello Daniel,

from the dos promt

a:>  fdisk /mbr

You must have a dos/windows boot disk

This command write's a new Master Boot Record to your harddisk

Good luck

Johan

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: RayG on January 22, 2003, 09:10:57 PM

I have had less luck with the /mbr option recently. I did find an up to date version of FDISK on the freedos.org web site and it recognised the LINUX partition for what it was. All the standard FDISK options were available and worked perfectly on three drives that the MSDOS FDISK utility, including the /mbr option, wouldn't fix.

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Dan Brown on January 22, 2003, 09:22:27 PM

/mbr does *not* delete partitions; it only rewrites the master boot record.  To delete the partitions, you'll need an intelligent partitioning program, which excludes the standard DOS FDISK.EXE.  I've had generally good luck with Partition Magic, but there are others out there.

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Michael Smith on January 22, 2003, 11:09:11 PM

Depending on the drive manufacturer, you should be able to get drive utilities that will perform a function called something like "write zeroes" ... this will destroy EVERYTHING on the drive and render it a "tabula rasa."

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Charlie Brady on January 22, 2003, 11:38:30 PM

Dan Brown wrote:

> /mbr does *not* delete partitions; it only rewrites the
> master boot record.  To delete the partitions, you'll need an
> intelligent partitioning program, which excludes the standard
> DOS FDISK.EXE.  I've had generally good luck with Partition
> Magic, but there are others out there.

This is both quick and reliable, from the linux command line:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1k count=1 of=/dev/hda

Charlie

Title: Re: delete linux partition
Post by: Ed Form on January 23, 2003, 02:55:19 AM

Dan Brown wrote:
>
> /mbr does *not* delete partitions; it only rewrites the
> master boot record.  To delete the partitions, you'll need an
> intelligent partitioning program, which excludes the standard
> DOS FDISK.EXE.  I've had generally good luck with Partition
> Magic, but there are others out there.

A Windows 2000 install will allow you to remove the partition when you get to the 'Where do you want to put the Windows install screen.

Ed Form