Uninstalled Redhat Linux 8... lost hard disk space

[ajashadi]

Hi,
I have IBM THINKPAD600 and i have Win98 running on C: partition. I had installed RH Linux8 too . Recently my friend removed Linux( dont know how) . Now my problem is that I cant get back the hard disk space which was used by Linux. My system had 4gb hard disk. I have C:(2 GB) fat16 partition. I tried to use Fdisk but couldnt delete NON DOS PARTITION but it gave me a message saying..."didnt detect non-dos partition"..
This is the status of my current hard disk...

Fixed Disk Drive Status
Disk Drv Mbytes Free Usage
1 3906 1717 56%
C: 2047
138


Display Partition Information

Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS 2047 FAT16 52%
2 EXT DOS 142 4%



Total disk space is 3906 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)


The Extended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives.
Do you want to display the logical drive information (Y/N)......?[Y]


My friend installed partition magic and also created boot disks as said by PM during installation...He says he opened partition magic and the screen was greyed out without giving any options to do....He said he saw something like swap space but he wasnt clear on this...sorry...Then he restarted and that was the last thing he was able to do...after restarting he got error message "missing dll file,msvcrt.dll." and also explorer error message. After u click ok u can see only blank desktop and system literally hangs... so i copied the msvcirt.dll(i read on the net to replace this file too) and msvcrt.dll from other system and copied unto his system and i was able to restart the system. First thing i did is removed the partition magic... now the system boots but i get message "missing dll file,mfc42.dll" . After u click ok the system works... I remember theres a option in linux installation cd which basically does 2 tasks 1)removes whatever is installed on the system 2) removes only linux partitions... i guess my best bet is to use the second option... what do u recommend... i have been burnt bad with pm...

Advice needed ...thanks agian..

[mdwatts]

Since Linux has already been removed, have you tried booting with the PM bootdisks and see if you can remove the Linux partition, reboot with the PM disks again and then resize the fat32 partition to take up the space from the Linux partition.

That or try
GNU Parted (http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/).

[deanrantala]

I have often had problems deleting the "non DOS partitions" created by linux using part majic and MD-DOS fdisk. The (often) best way is to boot up on the RH disk, use the included partitioning tool to delete the linux partition, re-boot with the PM disk and do as mdwatts said.

Also, it can be risky (risk data loss) when re-sizing any partition. Be ABSOLUTELY SURE to back anything up on the fat16 partition before re-sizing it!

BTW: You *really* should convert that fat16 partition to fat32.

[mdwatts]

Ahhh - fat16 partition.

Doesn't fat16 have a 2gb partition size limit?

[phlipant]

mdwatts is right, fat16 has a 2gb limit.

your linux partition is probably still there, i would bet your "friend" re-wrote your MBR with sys c:.

if you boot from a linux floppy and run lilo it will probably restore your dual-boot system.

[xxRickSxx]

The problem here is windoze and microsoft did not take into account for other OS's and partitions that are non DOS partitions. OF course Microsoft does recognize the ext3 file system that is why it looks like you lost your hard drive space.

What you can do is reboot off of your distro and if it has an expert mode for creating partitions on it. change the partition on it to a dos partition, then just reboot. without going any further.

Or download a partition software from another source, like partition magic. there is also a free one at download.com that works good, but for now the name escapesme I think it is something like swissknife or something like that.

Good Luck
:)

[xxRickSxx]

I meant in the last post does not recognize ext3 file system. Also if you want to keep linux, If it still there just restore the lilo boot loader, that is if your friend just removed the loader, from what is sounds like tho, you dont want linux on your system anymore.