Ok all you wonderful helpful and clever peeps I am having loads of probs.

I decided in my ultimate wisdom to put linux (mandrake 10.1) on our 'puter as well as keeping windows xp. Now I want to get rid of it but don't know how. Can anyone give me some advice on how to do this please. :confused:

Will a 14lb lump hammer help...? :throwpc:

Handy gadgets those sledge hammers... But if sledging your puter doesn't work... them maybe you could go into My Computer... then into the Control Panel and then into the Add or Remove Programs and see if it's there.. If it is, it gives you an option to remove it that way...

Except one thing... I have no clue what the hell this... linux (mandrake 10.1) is...

Dingo
.

Umm, well, boot up in XP and throw Linux out...


If you can't find it, run a search and manually (using the command line) delete the entire directory.


That is, if it's as simple on a PC as it is on a Mac...

sorry guys....... none of that will work...... none of you understand linux....... no offence

ok well here we go.
the problem is that windoze cant read ext formatted drives, which is what linux uses, there for it cant be seen by windows. and since its not a windoze program it wont be in the installed list in the control panel.
sinse I cant understand why you would want to get rid of it I wont help anymore till I hear why......... sorry, no offense intended but, why? linux is great, and linux and windoze allows maximum greatness and compatablitie!

I don't know anything about linux, but I was told it was really great and worked well along side windoze. I have played with it and it is fun. It is happily sitting on a 200 gig hard drive while windoze is on a 40 gig hard drive.

My problem is linux is not compatible with my modem (BT Voyager 100 USB ADSL modem) therefore I can't get online with linux, so I feel it is a waste of a 200 gig hard drive which I could really do with using.

Any help greatly accepted

I had the same problem, but I had a crappy win-modem, but I picked up a £25 creative hardware modem from ebuyer.co.uk, but this is all 56k?
Id suggest picking up a new modem because linux is much (trust me so much more) secure on the net. but if you don't want to then....
you need to find a fdisk program, apparently the linux setup discs can do it but I have redhat and didn't figure out how. and because its windoze, the hardest part is finding a free one! most linux stuff is free! you must make sure the program can deal with ext partitions! dos is best for this kind of thing because its small and often free, but some people cant use dos. you'll have to google and see what you can find.
but I take it linux can detect the modem and you have done the command line to dohiccy it, you know initialize, cant remember what its called. you need to give it a system name, then setup a connection. you could try contacting the modem maker and ask if they have linux drivers. but if its a hardware based modem it should be fine?
anyway I dribbled on long enough, and thats probably quite confusing, just point out anything you don't understand and I'll try and clarify it for you......
anyway hope this helps :/

Ok that all sounds soooo technical. Can you by any chance explain this as if you are trying to teach a 6 year old (although even a 6year old would probably get it quicker than I will)

Q1. What is an fdisk?
Q2. Do I use it from windoze or linux?

fdisk is what you use to, divide harddiscs into multiple drives, format drives to different types like fat32 'windoze' ext13 'linux', its usually runs from dos, but dos cant see ext13 drives usually!
at the moment I ain't finding anything in google to help! this area is dry!
I think you best bet is to boot from you linux setup disks, and see if they will let you format the drive, the thing you want to look for is fat32.
sorry I cant be more help, I don't have mandrake, and the internet is useless for specific information like this :/

ok kick me.......... owch......
I deserve punishment........ why?
well it turns out.... linux uses ext3! not ext13! ahhhh!! dam my memory, why must it hate me so!
I'll get back to you soon.

if you can, you could download
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
but as I said, its very hard to find a free program to do these things :/
http://www.ranish.com/part/
much smaller download but not so easy to use? and you may need a boot disc?

Apart from all super intelligent answers you got until now I would suggest you first make your problem clear, scienic.vonnie.

First you have to know what you want then someone might tell you what to do, as it looks to me until now you have no problem at all apart from some people trying to create one.

I would like to know:
1. Do you have linux on a separate Harddrive?
2. Do you know what a partition is and do you know what partitions your harddrives are divided in?

If 1 is a YES:
You do not have a problem. Just determine from which drive your computer boots if you can. I would like to know then how your drives are connected to the mainboard.

If 1 is a NO:
Then you mean that you have one large harddrive with several partitions. I would suggest to get a partition program if you are not experienced with such things. e.g. "Partition Magic" can rearrange partitions for you automatically and is not a bad choice for users doing it quick, secure and expensive... if you want to do it manually then you have to give me the exact partitioning of your harddrive... it does not matter at all which partition your linux uses as long as you have a quite sophisticated partition program (I would never suggest fdisk for windows). I would suggest if you want to get on quickly you look here:

http://www.freeware-download.com/System/Partition/

Be careful though... backup before you try anything! Partitioning is a very dangerous business and there is the chance that if you do something wrong you loose your whole partition/harddrive.

In any way the best and cleanest thing to do in my eyes is a total new partitioning, that means: Insert WinXP CD, restart computer from CD and install it completly new. There you also can create other partitions if you like. That way you do ont need anything else and do get a new clean installation... however you would loose all your data you did not backup and will have to reinstall all applications. So it is your choice...

:applause: WinXP has NO DOS... no NT based system has DOS... just a small hint.


I am sorry... what is your modem then based on? What exactly is a non-hardware based modem???

I would have said XP don't use DOS, but it didn't seem important. its easy to download
and the alternative to a hardware modem is a winModem, win modems do a lot of the work with a program, which gives unstable speeds and uses up processor power.

Ok Apache, here's the fix:


1) Unplug both of your hard drives.

2) Unplug any other components you really like (like a DVD drive, CD drive, disk drive, ZIP drive, etc.)

3) Buy a Mac.

4) Plug components into the Mac and install drivers (if neccessary—shouldn't be for the hard drives)

5) Enjoy the best stability of any OS, and the compatibility of the Mac's internal modem, and Linux side by side if you really want to.

And sriontoc, all modems are hardware. There is no such thing as a software modem, because hardware is needed to convert the telephone line's signal into data that the computer can read.

no offense but look it up! then tell me I'm wrong. their called winModems!

Great advice can I have yours when you get your new one. I promise to let Apache use it.

They are on separate harddrives. Windoze is on a 40 gig and linux is on a 200 gig.

they are connected with normal IDE cables. The 40gig is the master and the 200gig is the slave drive.

When I start my 'puter I get 10 seconds to choose either linux or windoze if I don't make a choice linux is automatically loaded.
:confused: