[SOLVED] Removing Windows...

[Dave-Oregon]

Hello,
I would like to finally remove windows from my Linux box...

Still a bit new at Linux, so I have a few questions first...

1. I believe I will need to reformat the Windows disk, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

2. I will need to change GRUB2 to not show the windows boot anymore... Again, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

3. Is there anything else I need to do, I might be unaware of?

Thanks,
Dave

[RobinVossen]

Try this:
fdisk /dev/sda
su -c "nano /boot/grub.lst"

Google Grub Config and fdisk

Cheers,
Robin

[GNU-Fan]

Please be careful when you lay hands on the partition table. One mistake and both (Windows and Linux) may go down. As the exact steps vary for each specific setup, it is hard to give specific instructions.

The one thing you should always do before touching anything is a complete backup of the whole harddrive.

I did repartition my hard disk with this LiveCD:
Modify Your Partitions With GParted Without Losing Data | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials


EDIT:
If Windows is really on its own physical hard disk, it is easier. But still make sure you format the correct drive.

[devils casper]

1. I believe I will need to reformat the Windows disk, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

We have to check existing partition structure of your Hard disk first. Execute this in Terminal :

su -
fdisk -l

Post output here.

2. I will need to change GRUB2 to not show the windows boot anymore... Again, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

Execute update-grub command after removing Windows OS. It will generate new GRUB Menu with Windows OS entry in it.

3. Is there anything else I need to do, I might be unaware of?

If you have added Windows OS partition in /etc/fstab file to automount it, remove its entry from file.

[Dave-Oregon]

Hello,

Thank you for the reply. Here is the output of fdisk -l:

strangelove:/home/dcole# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb995baee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 91201 732572001 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x87c348c5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 182071 1462485276 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 182072 182401 2650725 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 182072 182401 2650693+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
strangelove:/home/dcole#

Be aware that grub is running from sda1, hence my fear in messing with things... The only thing I care about on sda1, is the boot partition. I want to insure that I don't wipe "grub" out...

Thanks again for the help!!

Dave

[Jonathan183]

I would like to finally remove windows from my Linux box...

Still a bit new at Linux, so I have a few questions first...

1. I believe I will need to reformat the Windows disk, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

2. I will need to change GRUB2 to not show the windows boot anymore... Again, can someone point me at a URL outlining this?

3. Is there anything else I need to do, I might be unaware of?

Thanks,
Dave

1. Reformat of Windows partition is optional, but not essential ... you could wipe Windows information and setup Linux to access that partition but it is better to use a Linux file system instead.
2. After removing Windows running the update-grub command as dc indicated will do the job for you.
3. Depends what you do with the disk space, the easiest way to use it is to format the partition to a Linux file system, add a mount point for it and add an entry to /etc/fstab so it is mounted each time you start Linux.

Hello,

Thank you for the reply. Here is the output of fdisk -l:

strangelove:/home/dcole# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xb995baee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 91201 732572001 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x87c348c5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 182071 1462485276 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 182072 182401 2650725 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 182072 182401 2650693+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
strangelove:/home/dcole#

Be aware that grub is running from sda1, hence my fear in messing with things... The only thing I care about on sda1, is the boot partition. I want to insure that I don't wipe "grub" out...

I suspect what you have actually done is install Linux to sdb and installed grub to the MBR of sda (not sda1). So you should be able to format partition sda1 using gparted. You can do this from a live CD ...

How do you want to use the extra space? as a large home partition, as a data partition or something else?

[Dave-Oregon]

Hi,

You have outlined exactly what I did... I wanted Linux totally away from Windows, in the event I wanted to dump windows, (which I do now), so it looks like a bit of pre-planning actually helped!!

I have no idea what to do with the additional space... I have been using it for clonzilla backups of my running Linux system. I expect that is not a bad idea in general, however, as I mentioned, I am new to Linux, so if you have any suggestions, I am all ears!

Thanks again,
Dave

[Dave-Oregon]

Hi,

I got it formatted, however I can not write anything to it as a normal user...

Dave

[devils casper]

You have give ownership of that partition to a Regular User.

chown  userid:group_id  mount_point

Replace userid, group_id and mount_point with actual ids. Execute id command to check Ids.

[Dave-Oregon]

Hello,

Sir I thank you! All is working now, and I have a PILE of additional space for backups!

Dave