Getting The F*ing Linux Thing Off Your Computer

OK, so I totally blew up Fedora by installing the music player Banshee. Warning 1: Banshee will totally fubar your system. More later.

But now, I was in a pickle. I could not boot to Linux because the partition was trashed. But I could not boot to Windows because the bootloader for Fedora did not offer Windows at an option by default and I did not know how to change it. Finally, I managed to get Windows up, and was faced with the next hurdle: how to get the Linux partition off the hard drive so I could use it again.

The partition showed up in My Computer. But although you can access an NTFS partition from Linux, Windows will not read a Linux Ext or LVM partition. So Now what?

Here's how to fix your bootloader to get back to Windows and remove the Linux partition from your hard drive from within Windows.

First, you need your Windows XP cd.
1. Boot from the CD. Select Recovery Console from the setup menu. (Press R).\
2. A DOS-like screen will ask you which installation you want to log onto. Look for the number next to C:\windows and pressit.

Example:

1: C:\WINDOWS
Which installation would you like to log on to?_
1 (this is what I typed)

C:\WINDOWS_ (this is a good ol DOS prompt, you're ready to do the next step....)

C:\WINDOWS FIXMBR (type FIXMBR.This will erase the existing master boot record and create a new one. Many warnings follow. Type Y and hit enter.)

C:|WINDOWS_ FIXBOOT (FIXBOOT will recreate the Windows bootloader and GRUB).

Now restart the computer. Windows will load (hopefully) and run scandisk and chkdsk.

When you get to the desktop, right click My Computer and select "Manage". Select "Disk Management."

You will see all the partitions. Windows will be labelled NTFS (or FAT32, if you chose it), and the Linux partitions will either be unlabelled or labelled as "Unknown".

Right click each partition EXCEPT the one are using right now (!), and select Delete.

Now, you can right click the empty space, select Format, and reformat it as an NTFS Primary partition.

BuhBYE Linux partition. You may now reinstall your favorite distro and go back to torturing yourself. :)