Hello,
Recently I had to completely remove OpenSUSE and install windows 7 on my computer but when I had to select the partitions, none of the partitions could be used as it is:
I’ve been stuck for awhile now. Is there anyway I can remove OpenSUSE and format the partitions to NTFS?
Would appreciate any help.
Here is a clue: When going the opposite way I used W7’s partitioning utility to shrink its partition that filled the disk. However, why can’t W7’s installation media reformat your disk?
When I was at the partition selection page, the format button is blanked out. The only option available is the delete option.
And there was an error message at the bottom: Windows cannot be installed on this partition because it is not NTFS (Somewhere along those lines)
I think it’s because your partitions are in ext3, ext4 or btrfs format. You should use gparted to reformat your disk.
You can burn a live cd of a linux distribution to do that: I recommend Slitaz.
Sorry for my English.
gsgoh wrote:
>
> When I was at the partition selection page, the format button is blanked
> out. The only option available is the delete option.
>
> And there was an error message at the bottom: Windows cannot be
> installed on this partition because it is not NTFS (Somewhere along
> those lines)
>
>
That is exactly what you need to do, delete the existing partitions and
create new ones with the win 7 installer.
as far as i know there is no MS-Windows disk which can do anything
with ext3, ext4 or any other Linux file system…
so, boot from your openSUSE (or any other Linux) install disk and use
its partitioner to format the entire disk to FAT (or anything MS can
understand) and then you Win7 should be able to figure out how to
proceed…
good thing Linux is allowed to know how to work with Windows, huh?
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
I assumed you have a fully partitioned disk or not enough spare disk space for a windows partition. Windows can’t do linux filesystem based partitions. I also assumed you still had openSUSE installed, so you could delete partitions using YaST’s partitioner, or as @kimi_roi suggested a liveCD with a partitioner onboard, that could be best.
Yeah, or delete a partition & recreate a blank one to be formatted - The delete option in the win7 installer is what you want (you will lose all data on the partition you delete).
Hadn’t seen DenverD’s reply - go with that one first.
DenverD wrote:
> as far as i know there is no MS-Windows disk which can do anything
> with ext3, ext4 or any other Linux file system…
>
> so, boot from your openSUSE (or any other Linux) install disk and use
> its partitioner to format the entire disk to FAT (or anything MS can
> understand) and then you Win7 should be able to figure out how to
> proceed…
>
> good thing Linux is allowed to know how to work with Windows, huh?
>
That is not completely correct, windows can of course delete this
partitions. But you are right beside that it can do nothing else with it.
Sorry, my bad wording. I meant go with the linux install disk rather than the installed openSUSE partitioner that I suggested.
However you could easily try using the delete function of the W7 installer first, as suggested by both @martin_helm and @weighty_foe, assuming you are done with the partition(s) and data content.
Martin Helm wrote:
> That is not completely correct, windows can of course delete this
> partitions. But you are right beside that it can do nothing else with it.
ok then they have made it smarter than the last time i tried, about
five years ago i sold a computer to a friend who was gonna install
win-something…maybe XP…
the install disk just simply refused to see or do anything with
the disk–which was filled with several ext3 (or 2, or reiser–i don’t
remember now) partitions…
win reported something like ‘corrupt’ or ‘faulty disk’ or something (i
do not remember, but it sure didn’t offer to delete anything)…
i took a linux disk over and zapped it wall-to-wall as FAT and the win
install disk got happy…
so, things do change in Redmond, i guess…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
I can’t repartition with the expert partitioner from the install disk without installing linux. I’m currently downloading gparted and will try to re-partition using gparted.
I’m so afraid of screwing up my partitions lol.
On Thu, 2010-08-05 at 13:36 +0000, gsgoh wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Recently I had to completely remove OpenSUSE and install windows 7 on
> my computer but when I had to select the partitions, none of the
> partitions could be used as it is:
>
> 1. Logical File System (Windows requires NTFS)
> 2. Partitions are full
>
> I’ve been stuck for awhile now. Is there anyway I can remove OpenSUSE
> and format the partitions to NTFS?
>
> Would appreciate any help.
>
>
Not sure about Windows 7, but in the past M$ made some horrible
assumptions in attempt to try to FIX their tendency to overwrite data
what didn’t belong to them. The solution here is to boot openSUSE in
rescue mode and write some zeros over the boot area and partition table
of the drive… the M$ will see it as an “empty” drive and do the right
thing.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
if /dev/sda is your disk
I just run it for a bit and interrrupt it, do a sync and then try to
install Windows… it’s likely that just blanking out the first 512
bytes will probably be sufficient.
DenverD wrote:
> Martin Helm wrote:
>> That is not completely correct, windows can of course delete this
>> partitions. But you are right beside that it can do nothing else with it.
>
> ok then they have made it smarter than the last time i tried, about
> five years ago i sold a computer to a friend who was gonna install
> win-something…maybe XP…
>
> the install disk just simply refused to see or do anything with
> the disk–which was filled with several ext3 (or 2, or reiser–i don’t
> remember now) partitions…
>
> win reported something like ‘corrupt’ or ‘faulty disk’ or something (i
> do not remember, but it sure didn’t offer to delete anything)…
>
> i took a linux disk over and zapped it wall-to-wall as FAT and the win
> install disk got happy…
>
> so, things do change in Redmond, i guess…
>
I had the “pleasure” to help a friend installing win 7 on a laptop which had
linux on it (kubuntu) as the only operating system, so I did simply erase
all partititions with the installer. So i know that works.
It is not unreasonable what you say that this did not work for the older
windows versions, I can imagine, but I never had to try it.
Btw I told him that I consider it as a really bad decission to replace a
real operating system with windows (but I helped him anyway and told him if
he will later have trouble with windows he shall ask someone else and not
me).
Martin Helm wrote:
> told him if he will later have trouble with windows he shall ask
> someone else and not me
one of the reasons i quit using Windows completely was so i would stop
getting request to help folks fix the machines they had murdered
though inattention, allowing malware or just plain unwilling to read
the directions…
another reason was i just filled all my needs with Linux…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
DenverD wrote:
> one of the reasons i quit using Windows completely was so i would stop
> getting request to help folks fix the machines they had murdered
> though inattention, allowing malware or just plain unwilling to read
> the directions…
>
> another reason was i just filled all my needs with Linux…
>
That is the same reason I had. We are (nearly) linux only (me, my wife and
our daughter). Only on the daughters PC is the preinstalled vista still
alive in an unused partition. I bootet into it some days ago to check it (I
nearly forgot that it even existed) and noticed that it is about half a year
she last used it (she uses Ubuntu as main operating system). So I guess
there will be a day when I delete it.
But still after 5 years without any windows for me (except at work) people
ask me for help with their screwed windows machines and I say always the
same: “I don’t use it ask one of the experts”. And the so called experts in
my wifes family (her brothers) do not much more than wipe it and reinstall
it.
Just after that win 7 installation I thought nobody shall ever again tell me
that linux is difficult to install and not everything runs out of the box
with windows. Since this laptop was used and did not come with a driver cd
with win 7 drivers and the only thing I had was the brand new install dvd
for win 7 (129 euro from amazon) which he bought some days before, I could
again see how “well” this runs out of the box.
No 3d not even a reasonable resolution, no wirless, no sound in windows.
Every driver downloaded from a different vendor with a lot of googling until
everything was in place.
> No 3d not even a reasonable resolution, no wirless, no sound in windows.
> Every driver downloaded from a different vendor with a lot of googling until
> everything was in place.
tell me, about how many hours and how many boots did it take to get a
usable system…
i ask, because somewhere in these fora in the last month or two i
mentioned a couple of figures i had read elsewhere and someone posted
to tell me i was horribly and unfairly over stating the pain…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]
DenverD wrote:
>> No 3d not even a reasonable resolution, no wirless, no sound in windows.
>> Every driver downloaded from a different vendor with a lot of googling
>> until everything was in place.
>
> tell me, about how many hours and how many boots did it take to get a
> usable system…
>
> i ask, because somewhere in these fora in the last month or two i
> mentioned a couple of figures i had read elsewhere and someone posted
> to tell me i was horribly and unfairly over stating the pain…
>
I did not count. It was better than with older versions like win 200 or xp.
But including the hardware drivers I remember at least 5 boots (maybe a real
windows expert would have known how to do it with less reboots).
The most annoying thing is at the end you have a completely naked operating
system without any useful programs.
Real fun 
And I had the luck (and this was really only luck not my skills) that I
fetched every time with the first try the correct drivers.
The problem my friend will have (I know this day will come soon) is when he
needs to reinstall everything in a few months (of course I burned the
drivers to a cd so that he has a backup) to find someone who will do it for
him. It is the same with his PC a vista machine, at least twice a year he
screws everything and reinstalls with the recovery partition (he found out
how to do that), but with this install which did not come from the
manufacturer there is no such easy recovery partition.
Including the search on the net for the drivers and installing some basic
software (openoffice, thunderbird, firefox and such things which were the
easy part) it costs me about 5-6 working hours maybe more not included the
time where the machine simply installed and I did something else.
Of course it can happen to me that I need so much time for a linux also, my
opensuse 11.3 install on my laptop went not completely smooth (that is not
completely true it was not the opensuse itself but some applications, some
of them I compile myself like gnu octave and there were some problems), but
I do not repeat that every other month and it is not the usual situation
which I am confronted with, 11.2 on that machine was completely smooth.
And linux gives me the choice (not only which distro). I was unsatisfied now
for a long time with kde since the switch to kde 4 and simply gave now gnome
a try and I am satisfied (still using some kde applications like yakuake,
k3b, digikam).
What would or should I do in a similar situation if I wanted to switch the
windows 7 desktop to another desktop environment?
thanks for the rundown…i guess i was way over the top in that post
someone else called me own…i’m sure i read somewhere where a guy
said to get Win7 installed took him most of a full weekend and about
40! boots…
of course, he may have actually had all of that lost time and
heartache because of just plain bad luck or not having your level of
experience and an eye to pick the right driver the first time…
thinking back, i guess i never had the pleasure of installed a Windows
system…i’ve installed on a bare machine: OS/2 v3, v4, v4.5,
eComStation, Red Hat 5.1 and several other Linux distros…but, i
don’t think any of that experience would help me much in figuring out
how to find and install Win-drivers…unless they would begin putting
them all in a repo somewhere, and let me just click click…
–
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]