Uninstall/Reformat Mandrake ?

[bsmiller64]

I have a dual boot system. hda is win2k, hdb is Mandrake. Lilo is installed on the win2k drive.
I need to free up the linux hard drive for a while, so I need to know how to clean mandrake off, and be able to reformat NTFS.

I opened partition magic in Windoze, but it shows the linux drive as being one large bad partition. It won't reformat it. The drive isn't bad, because linux is still usable.

Don't assume I've allready tried the basics, I haven't. I'm such a linux newbie I don't even know what the basics are.
So let's start simple ;)

Thanks!

[ssadams]

boot into linux and as root open an xterm and use fdisk like this
fdisk /dev/hdb
type the letter o (empty dos partition table)
type the letter w (write and quit fdisk)
if you have a win98 bootdisk you can use it to boot and use dos fdisk with the command fdisk /mbr or you can use the win2000 tool to fix the boot loader. If not you can use lilo with the command lilo-U to remove it from the MBR, then reboot. partition magic should see the drive now

[jglen490]

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1) use the fixboot or fixmbr utilities in Win2K to get rid of the Lilo boot code on the primary hard drive. Then use the Linux version of fdisk to reallocate and combine your existing Linux filesystem partitions into a windows, or dos, or fat partition.

2) ) use the fixboot or fixmbr utilities in Win2K to get rid of the Lilo boot code on the primary hard drive. Then use your Mandrake install CDs, but this time do an Update install. Then skip down to the section where you set up partitions, just erase the existing Linux partitions and declare them as windows, or dos, or fat.

[bsmiller64]

Thanks, both of you. Looks like you posted at the same time.

Should the command be like this :
fdisk /dev/hdb o w

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by bsmiller64

Should the command be like this :
fdisk /dev/hdb o w

As posted...

fdisk /dev/hdb
type the letter o (empty dos partition table)
type the letter w (write and quit fdisk)