I’m brand new to Linux so would appreciate any help I could get. A few days ago I installed openSUSE 11.1 on a brand-new ThinkPad (I did not realize that it came without Windows pre-installed when I ordered it, long story…). The installation occurred without problems, and all was well.
However, I now realize that I still cannot do everything I was used to doing (and want to do) with Windows also using Linux. So I would prefer to just wipe everything clean and start over again, i.e. delete openSUSE 11.1 from my machine completely (quasi revert the machine to factory condition). How would I go about doing this?
I currently have 3 logical partitions:
/dev/sda1 (swap)
/dev/sda2
/dev/sda3 (/home)
I have tried to delete these partitions in YaST but it would neither let me unmount nor delete them (I guess b/c openSUSE is running on them while I try to execute this?).
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks very much!
X
P.S.: The other alternative would be to set up dual boot but I’m not sure how to go about that either. Seems like a lot of people have gone windows → + linux but few the other way around. I haven’t come across a step-by-step guide for installing windows on a machine that currently only runs on openSUSE so if someone has thoughts on that it would be helpful as well!
The windows installer should let you delete the linux partitions to make room for windows. You could also boot from the opensuse live cd and delete them from there.
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 60801.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x03d203d1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 12748 102398278+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 * 12749 60801 385985722+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 12749 13010 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 13011 15621 20972826 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 15622 60801 362908318+ 83 Linux
In my case I would (d)elete partitions 7, 6, 5, and 2. Then I would (w)rite and (q)uit.
A dual boot is pretty straight forward easiest way is install windows first then openSUSE.
openSUSE will see the windows and resize it to make space. Just make sure the windows partition is defraged first.
Read more here
Thanks for all your help! I had tried to install Windows and just let Windows help me get rid of Linux. Unfortunately I get a blue screen every time I try. Basically it’s shutting down b/c of a hard disk error (technical error codes: 0x0000007B (0xF7B84524,0xC0000034,0x0000000,0x0000000)). Not sure how I can get rid of it to get Windows to install properly. Any ideas?
I also tried this 2nd option (deleting sda2* and sda3 in Terminal). At first it seems to refuse to delete these partitions because the resource was busy (so the error message said).
But when I restarted the computer it would no longer find the operating system (installing Windows from this point on failed - see above). First message when starting up says “Error no active partition”.
When I tried to repair openSUSE it would give me all kinds of errors:
Thanks Geoff! My problem right now is that I cannot install Windows without removing openSUSE first it seems… Always get a bluescreen (see my previous post a few minutes ago). Any idea?
Hmmm, since my ThinkPad was shipped without an OS (oversight on my end) it also had no recovery CD/DVD. I read somewhere that I could just get a DOS boot disk, boot from it and go format c: but of course I no longer have a floppy drive. Tried to make a DOS boot CD but my computer refuses to boot from it… Any thoughts? Thanks!
Hmm, if you have access to another p.c., download & burn Gparted to cd GParted – Welcome this can be used to remove/format your entire drive/partitions enabling you to start from scratch
I don’t understand why you having trouble to format your hard disk . even if you don’t have recovery disk you can still use winxp or vista installer cd/dvd to do the job .
if you use winxp , just let it boot until it ask you partition to install , in there you will see the partition created by linux . just delete all the partition and create new partition . this work same with vista .