Can anyone tell me how to remove linux from my laptop please

[paulkwiatkowski]

I like linux .... thanks for all your efforts regarding it... however i have to resell my machine and put windows back on it.... i have usb drive ready to re-install windows but as I proceed my windows installation usb tells me that it cannot find my harddrive...... somehow ubuntu is blocking it..... how can I reformat my hard drive or at the very least remove ubuntu so that my harddrive is readable again?

Thanks

[ptkobe]

If you arre booting from the usb I don't see how linux could be blocking the hdd.

Any way, you may "create a new empty DOS partition table" with fdisk. Notice that it will ERASE everything from the hdd.

To do that you can
* boot from your ubuntu cd to a live session.
* Open a termnal
* run
$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda
- type m (and enter)
- type o (and enter)
- type w (and enter)
* shutdown the machine

That should solve it.
Luis

[paulkwiatkowski]

everything is fine until i get to the part of where do you want to install the windows os and it show the usb stick as the only drive.... something is blocking something .... but i will try it the way you suggest.... the harddrive shows up fine in the cmos-bios...

thanks again.

how do i open a terminal in linux please?

[ptkobe]

Applications > Accessories > Terminal

[zombykillah]

Sorry to interfere ... but for your info:
WinXP doesn't support SATA with the plain installation medium.

You will need to put your HDD into a IDE mode first, or add the SATA AHCI driver to your windoff installation medium.

However this sure ain't a linux related problem but a windows driver problem.

[paulkwiatkowski]

thanks zombie killah..... how would i go about adding that to the windows to usb software I am using to achieve that....? is there some other special tool for that?

[zombykillah]

As I wrote before it's a common problem with win-xp setups.
Vista, 7 or 8 should work without problems.

For WinXP you have the possibility to put your HDD into a IDE mode (with DEL or F2 you can enter your bios settings and if your Mainboard supports it you can change into IDE mode)

Or you modify your installation medium ... add the drivers ...
You may just google following words:
add ahci drivers to xp cd
The second link has a quite good description, you still need to know what ahci driver you will need ... some time has passed since I needed this so I'm not up to date myself.
Last time I checked there were four or five different driver I added to my medium.

[paulkwiatkowski]

cool thanks again guys

[linuxwin2]

You can also use gparted live CD to delete / reformat partitions.