Hello all... I recently purchased a computer system from the ISP that I work for. I went to format the hard drive and start from scratch. The problem is, the system is running Linux and I can't get format.com to work. It doesn't recognize the C drive, because it is a Linux drive, not a DOS drive.

It is a Dell Dimension 333, and the BIOS doesn't offer a Low-level format option (not that I'd really want to use it anyway).

How can I get rid of it and install Windows? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks all,

Scoot_dawg

Linux and DOS/Windows use different kinds of hard drive partitions, which are not compatable. You need to run fdisk and remove the non-DOS Linux partitions, then create a DOS primary partition, reboot, then use format.com to format the drive.

you could use a linux boot disk and choose to del the partition with lilo..rember to save changes before rebooting with fdisk

I was not able to get rid of a Linux partition using FDISK or the Linux partitioning software.

You can, find software from hard drive manufacturer's that remove the Linux partition.

Item number 5 in the link below describes how to get rid of the partition with Data Lifeguard with a Western Digital hard drive.

http://www.westerndigital.com/service/FAQ/linux.html#top

Every hard drive manufacturer has a similar utility.

Unfortunately, most of these HDD manufacturer's disks place their own hidden partition on the drive. Download a demo of partition magic. It "sees" and removes linux partitions.

I can't say this enough....
RANISH PARTITION MANAGER!!!
RANISH PARTITION MANAGER!!!
RANISH PARTITION MANAGER!!!
RANISH PARTITION MANAGER!!!

Go to www.ranish.com and download it. It can delete linux partitions easily...
The only other problem you may have is if LILO was installed on the boot record of the hard drive. If that is the case, boot the computer with a windows 9X bootdisk (you can get one from www.bootdisk.com) and issue this command from the DOS prompt.
fdisk /mbr
After that you should be good to go. I use Ranish all the time, even over Partition Magic. It works a lot faster and takes up a whole let less space on a disk.

Hope that helps,
-Michael

Another good way is Norton Disk Editor from a Dos boot-disk. If you go to physical drive (raw disk) and look at the end of the very first sector, you will see 55AA. This is a flag. If you change it, it then flags the partition table as invalid, and your Linux partitions or otherwise corrupt partitions vanish. Now your fdisk will happily create your new partitions Will Norton disk editor run in stand-alone mode? YES. Put it on a boot-floppy. And its help file if there's room.
:-)

Ive removed linux with fdisk no probloem, seem to be the best thing to do anyway

Woof

I had the same problem. At least some versions of MS-DOS FDISK do not see the Linux partition. DR-DOS 7.03 is free for downloading. The FDISK and FORMAT in it are what I used to remove RED HAT Linux partitions from my hard drive.