I have Suse installed, with Windows, on a machine I want to sell and need to remove the Suse installation. I can’t install Windows over the top because updates have made my disc an older version and the Suse installation appears to have blocked Partition Magic so I can’t re-partition the disc. Any ideas please?
Partition Magic (or really any partitioning tool) should be fine at
deleting all partitions and then letting you recreate whatever you want.
If not, well, that’s nonsense for that product. Worst case, load SUSE and
run ‘fdisk /dev/sda’ (use your correct drive) and delete the partitions,
write, and then try installing.
Windows: So crappy it can’t even install itself when it sees other things
installed.
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Good luck.
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Boot and nuke http://www.dban.org then install Windows.
If you’re selling the machine you should throughly overwrite the disk anyway to prevent possible recovery of your data by whoever gets the machine next.
Thanks Mike. I have downloaded the Oban iso but grub goes straight into Windows or Suse and I cant boot from a CD or mem-stick but I could start an application from a mem-stick say. I canÂt access the BIOS either but just want to wipe the HD. Any other suggestions please?
shabalstaff wrote:
[color=blue]
I have Suse installed, with Windows, on a machine I want to sell and
need to remove the Suse installation. I can’t install Windows over
the top because updates have made my disc an older version and the
Suse installation appears to have blocked Partition Magic so I can’t
re-partition the disc. Any ideas please?[/color]
Here are a few:
If some systems have a recovery partition that will restore the system
to factory defaults while preserving the recovery partition. It can
usually be accessed during the boot process by pressing a function key.
If you can boot from a CD/DVD it shouldn’t matter what is installed on
your hard drive. You can wipe the drive, format it, reinstall Windows,
etc.
There may be a function key you can press during the boot process that
will allow you to specify the boot device.
You may have to go into your system BIOS and change the boot order so
that it tries to boot from the CD/DVD before the hard drive.
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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shabalstaff wrote:
[color=blue]
I cant access the BIOS either but just want to wipe the HD.[/color]
What is the problem with accessing the BIOS? The computer manual should
explain how. It is usually just a function key: F1, F2, F12?
If access to the BIOS is password protected, there may be a jumper on
the motherboard to allow access or you may have to remove the battery
so that the BIOS settings, including the password, are reset.
Of course, you could also remove the hard drive and temporarily install
it in another system to wipe it.
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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Thanks K, but this one is a real problem and I think I will probably have to remove the drive, as you suggest, and do something externally. There is no recovery partition and although I have set the BIOS to give boot preference to the CD drive it doesn’t happen and the usual keyboard codes for access to the BIOS, on boot up, do not appear. the system goes straight into the choice screen for Suse/Windows. I cannot just re-format the HD because all the applications I have tried wont touch it while it is in use and the only one I know that would is an old one that only works in DOS.
A previous contributor was criticizing Windows for not allowing a re-install but as Linux is often used with Windows, for practical purposes, I wonder why it does not provide an uninstall function.
shabalstaff wrote:
[color=blue]
I wonder why it does not provide an uninstall function.[/color]
I thought that is what “fdisk” is for… 
–
Kevin Boyle - Knowledge Partner
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[QUOTE=KBOYLE;17900]shabalstaff wrote:
[color=blue]
I wonder why it does not provide an uninstall function.[/color]
I thought that is what “fdisk” is for…
[/QUOTE]
Or
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda and wait… 
Back to the probably of not being able to boot the machine from CD, then if you remove the drive to wipe it, how are you going to re-install Windows once you’ve put the drive back in the machine? Seems to me you really need to figure out the BIOS. If the machine won’t boot from CD and you’re certain you’ve set CD as the first boot device and you’ve tried multiple CDs and you’re certain the CD drive actually works, then you need to resort to KBOYLE’s previous suggestion of finding the motherboard jumper that allows you to reset the BIOS back to factory state. It should be labelled on the motherboard, it’ll be in the manual for the motherboard if you have that, or put the make and model in to Google.