Re: tlug: How to make a little room for Windows again?

[Selva Nair <selva@example.com>]

Hi !

Move to a bigger apartment ;-)

Okay.., you need to remove of lilo to stop the hard disk boot linux. 
Use dos fdisk: 'fdisk /mbr' is your friend (see below).

If you want to get rid of linux compeltely, boot dos from floppy (or
from your windows installation CD and escape to the dos prompt--- that
was possible in old days, dont know the present state of *sophstication*
of windows installers). Anyway once you have the dos prompt, run 
'fdisk /mbr' to restore the master boot record. Then delete all the
non dos partitions. AFAIK, except for some ancient versions, dos fdisk
does not shy away from deleting non-fat (lean?) partitions if asked
to :) Now you can repartition and reformat your disk... 

But you may not need to remove your linux installation if your small
disk can be spared without seriously affecting the present installation
-- ie if all the crucial partitions (/ /boot and /usr and swap) are
already on the large disk. In that case remove lilo and restore dos mbr
as above -- but before that make a linux boot floppy and make absolutely
sure that it does boot your linux system. Then you can repartition the
small disk using dos fdisk and install windows there. After installing
windows reboot to linux using the linux boot floppy you made, and
install lilo afresh for dual booting. 

Selva


On Thu, 13 Apr 2000, Ulrike Schmidt wrote:

>  I have two hard discs on my computer which is running Linux only at the
>  moment, but I need the smaller one for Windows again. I thought I have to
>  first reinstall Windows on the whole machine using the recovery CD it was
>  delivered with and then make room for Linux again. But I have difficulties
>  getting this Windows recovery thing going. At some point it has to restart
>  the computer and then lilo is happily loading Linux again and the Windows
>  recovery is not working. I thought I could solve the problem with a Windows
>  system floppy and format both hard discs before I try the recovery thing
>  again. But I cannot format any drives since now c: and d: are "Invalid
>  drive specification". Can anybody help me with this?
>  
>  Thanks in advance, Uli
>  
>  --------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Next Nomikai Meeting: April 20 (Thu) Linux Conference 2000 Spring Ed.
>  Next Technical Meeting: May 13 (Sat) 13:30 Temple University Japan
>  * Topic: TBD
>  --------------------------------------------------------------------
>  more info: http://www.tlug.gr.jp        Sponsor: Global Online Japan
>  

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Next Nomikai Meeting: April 20 (Thu) Linux Conference 2000 Spring Ed.
Next Technical Meeting: May 13 (Sat) 13:30 Temple University Japan
* Topic: TBD
--------------------------------------------------------------------
more info: http://www.tlug.gr.jp        Sponsor: Global Online Japan