how can i get rid of a linux partition without smashing the hard disk?!

[mr_ass]

i have a drive with red hat and winMe dual booting. i want to remove everyting and just install a single dos partition. how in god's name can i get rid of the linux partitions? dos fdisk doesn't work, it will remove the linux native but recognises the linux swap as an extended dos partition and won't delete it. tried linux fdisk from the hard disk in linux but it won't start,then tried it from a linux boot disk but it can't see the hard disk! disk druid will do it but the only way i can see of getting to it is through the install program which i don't want. there must be some way of getting rid of the fecking thing and don't say partition magic cos i shouldn't have to pay money just to get rid of the stupid thing. help before i go insane please!!!!

[furrycat]

What do you mean Linux fdisk "won't start?"

Why does your boot disk "not see" the drive? Are you booting from a SCSI boot disk and looking for an IDE drive (or vice versa)?

Anyway you already answered your own question: boot from the installation CD and use fdisk/disk druid. What's wrong with that?

[mr_ass]

ok here is the detail, i wanted to wait for a reply until i went into specifics. when i say fdisk won't start i mean i go into the directory containing the fdisk executable (as root), type fdisk and bash comes back and says it's an unrecognized command. do a listing and i can physically see fdisk there but it says its not.
so i made a boot disk, and when i started up i ran 'linux rescue' mode. type in fdisk - cool this time it works but when i run 'fdisk /dev/hda' it says can't find drive, so go into the dev directory and hda is not there. its just a plain linux boot disk which i made using the rawrite program on the redhat install cd. its not a scsi boot disk or hard disk just plain old ide.
whats wrong is no i can't boot from the cd cos my mobo doesn't allow it (its old). if i could i would have tried that already, but all you can do is install from a boot disk, or run an autoboot executable from a dos prompt which goes straight into the install program.
there isn't an fdisk/disk druid executable on the redhat cd, so what can i do?

[furrycat]

If you'd gone into detail in the first place you would have had an answer already.

Unix is not DOS. The current working directory is not in your PATH by default, and with good reason. Once you've gone into the directory where fdisk is you need to run ./fdisk or use the full path /sbin/fdisk or whatever.

Red Hat's braindead installer creates device entries in /tmp on demand, which is why hda is not in /dev. Running disk druid once should make it or you could try "mknod /dev/hda b 3 0" which will work if Red Hat were kind enough to provide mknod with their disk image.

[mr_ass]

ooooooooohh get you! thanks for the help but i've fixed it already. no wonder this forums dead, if all you get is sarcy comments instead of helpful advice....

[furrycat]

Ever hear the old expression "ask a silly question..."?

Unfortunately I broke that rule by actually giving you a serious answer. Two, in fact. Sorry about that. Next time I'll stick to the sarcasm.

[mr_ass]

silly question?! ha ha ha you lamer, get a life!

[furrycat]

Geeks don't have lives, that's why we spend our time bumping up our post counts on forums.