Red Hat Linux?!?!?

[Rizon]

Hey guys.
Today my assistant manager asked me to take his computer and attempt to rid it of Linux, mainly because he prefers windows. Its his choice.
But still, i personally havnt used linux before and really, it just looks like ms:dos writing when the screen gets booted up. I'm not 100% sure its supposed to be right.
The system needs to have its harddrive wiped completly as its got a load of crap on there anyway.
So really i ask your help in how the hell do i that?
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314458 <-- i have looked at that, not tried it as im willing to trash a system that aint mine.
Help would be muchly appreciated.
Thanks

[NoZ]

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

That will wipe any hard drive.

[Rizon]

I'm confused. Red Hat doesnt load properly. I dont know how to load that onto the system.

[BugenhagenXIII]

If you're looking to remove Linux and install Windows, just pop in the Windows install cd and boot from it. It'll give you the option to do a quick erase/format or a full erase/format. I personally go for the full erase/format, but if it needs to be done quickly, just chose the quick option.

[Rizon]

I've tried that bugen unfortuantly, it just opened the cd drive after attempting to read it.

[BugenhagenXIII]

Are you unable to boot from any cd? Or just the windows install cd?

[Rizon]

I havnt tried any other cd's yet.
But Linux isnt booting up properly, and just stopping at the black screen, white text. eg msdos style.

[BugenhagenXIII]

Does it say something along the lines of
user@nameofthecomputer:~$

[Coded-Dude]

you need to boot to rescue mode(if you are going to "wipe" the drive)
Get a redhat install/recovery cd, and type in rescue at the boot pompt.

Fromthere you can use fdisk to delete, create, format, resize virtually any partition
(including the windows filesystem)

If you get this far let me know, I can help you through it..

Otherwise jsut stick in a Windows CD and install over redhat, it shoudl alsop let you blow away the RH install.

I am a little confused as to what exactly you want to do, but it sounds liek you don't want redhat, and need to replace it with windows.

[Rizon]

Nope, dont say that. And it doesnt boot any disk by the looks of it, i just tried a cd-r disk.

[Rizon]

you need to boot to rescue mode(if you are going to "wipe" the drive)
Get a redhat install/recovery cd, and type in rescue at the boot pompt.

Fromthere you can use fdisk to delete, create, format, resize virtually any partition
(including the windows filesystem)

If you get this far let me know, I can help you through it..

Otherwise jsut stick in a Windows CD and install over redhat, it shoudl alsop let you blow away the RH install.

I am a little confused as to what exactly you want to do, but it sounds liek you don't want redhat, and need to replace it with windows.

Basically, i want to get rid of red hat. and all the crap on the hard drive. and install windows. Just that red hat isnt booting properly.

[BugenhagenXIII]

You can't just try any disk at all, it has to be a bootable disk. Go download the DamnSmall Linux live cd here (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html). Burn it as an image, at a low burn speed. Then attempt to boot from it. If it works, then it's a faulty Windows cd. If not, not sure what would help.

[Rizon]

It cant be the windows disk as i can happierly boot it on my computer and work fine.

[BugenhagenXIII]

Oh. Okay then. Well, if you use the DBAN thing, you can wipe the drive, but I don't know how you'd go about installing Windows if you can't boot from cd.

[Rizon]

So basically, i need to get hold of a install/recovery cd so i can get the thing to properly reboot. Then i could use the fdisk thing that is mentioned off the microsoft website which is linked in my first post?

[BugenhagenXIII]

A Red Hat install/recovery cd won't do you much good if you can't boot from cd.

When the white-on-black text stops scrolling on the redhat box, what does it say?

[Rizon]

Right. This is what is on the screen when it stops.

/etc/rc.d/rc3.d/s50inet [: =: unary operator expected
Starting INET services
Starting linuxconf

/dev/hda:
setting 32-bit I/O support
flag to 1
Setting multcount to 16
Setting unmasking to 1 (on)
Setting using_dma to 1 (on)

multcount = 16 (on)
I/O support = 1 52 bits
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)

/de/hdc:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)

/dev/hda elevator ID 0
read_lateng 1
write_lateng 1
max_bomb_segmals : 0

[BugenhagenXIII]

Hmm... I'm not sure what's wrong. It appears as if the only error there is the whole "unary operator expected", and I don't know what that means. If no one here can help, you can always try the RedHat forums.

[Rizon]

Thanks for the help everyone.

I'll talk to the guy tonight so if he's got any other disks/whatever to help. If not i'll call the helpline on monday get them to send some random stuff to me to help hopefully.
And now, im off to the pub.

[Coded-Dude]

Why CAN'T you use the windows install disc?

It WILL wipe the red-hat image, once you re-format to a windows supported filesystem.....

[Coded-Dude]

alternatively you could download partition magic(as a bootable cd/floppy) and delete the linux partitions, but like I said above, jsut put itn the windows disc and start installing, you really don't need to do anythign with linux in order for that to work.

[=NukeBlaze=]

Sure the parition is not just corrupted or the HDD is crap?


Just burn a copy of the Ultiment boot cd (full version)
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

Run a diag on the drive, then use the same tool to zero-fill the disc if it passes the advanced test. Just makde sure to use the tool that cooesponds to the manufacture of the HDD.

[BugenhagenXIII]

I'm pretty sure he said that he can't boot from cd at all.

[=NukeBlaze=]

was it set in BIOS boot priority yet?

[Rizon]

Right.

Windows XP Install Disk = Computer simply reopens the disk tray.
The HDD isnt crap, its a 400gb. and the computers main use is a music player for commercial use.
I'll try the Ultimate Boot CD when i can.
and tbh Nuke, i havnt got a clue to what BIOS boot priority is. Explaination please?

[Garfunkel]

when you start the computer you sometimes see something like "press DEL to enter setup" or something along those lines, this is bios. in there there should be setting to adjust which storage device to boot from, it currently may be set to HDD, you need to set it to CD or whatever to boot from the xp cd.

[Rizon]

when you start the computer you sometimes see something like "press DEL to enter setup" or something along those lines, this is bios. in there there should be setting to adjust which storage device to boot from, it currently may be set to HDD, you need to set it to CD or whatever to boot from the xp cd.


Legend! Worked. Thanks to all. +rep to all ye helped, i'll do that later.

[Garfunkel]

w00t, glad i helped.