Can I use Kbuntu to COMPLETELY remove itself from a hard drive??

[Mike Dolan]

I have a hard drive that is formatted for Linux which I bought to use as a secondary storage drive for Windows XP. Of course Windows won't even show the drive because Windows doesn't recognize a hard drive formatted for Linux.

Does Kubuntu offer a way, such as fdisk, for COMPLETELY removing all Linux partitioning and formatting, so that a hard drive can once again be formatted for Windows? Or is this hard drive usable ONLY by a Linux system, such as Kubuntu, from now on?

Because if that is the case, everybody is wasting a LOT of perfectly good hard drives by using them to install Kubuntu, or Ubuntu, or Fedora, or even Solaris, just to find out if they like using them.

[Snowhog]

Re: Can I use Kbuntu to COMPLETELY remove itself from a hard drive??

You can use Windows fdisk to reformat the drive.

[musta ruhtinas]

Re: Can I use Kbuntu to COMPLETELY remove itself from a hard drive??

In WinXP: Start -> Run then type 'diskmgmt.msc' and it should bring up the Disk Management Console. From there you will be able to edit and format ALL drives as you like.
In order to remove grub you will need to boot off the WinXP install cd and when prompted select the Recovery Console. Once in it type /fixmbr, then boot normally and that should do it.

[Mike Dolan]

Re: Can I use Kbuntu to COMPLETELY remove itself from a hard drive??

The problem here is that a Linux-formatted hard drive, one with the GRUB loader on it if you will, is UNREADABLE in Windows! It doesn't show up in My Computer or even on the command line (Win XP's version of DOS).

I'll have to try finding it in the drive-management window, but I'm not hopeful.

This ISN'T a dual-boot hard drive! It's been reformatted ENTIRELY for Fedora, which is also a Linux OS. So I'm afraid a Linux OS is still the only one that I'll be able to use to remove GRUB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Can I use Kbuntu to COMPLETELY remove itself from a hard drive??

That should not be the case. fdisk looks at the physical information about hard drives from the CMOS. You should be able to open a cmd prompt (DOS Window) and type fdisk
You should be able to select the physical hard disk and reformat it as you wish.