Reference number: CH000574

How do I remove Linux and install Windows?

Question:

How do I remove Linux and install Windows?

Additional information:

Users who may have installed Linux may find it difficult to install Microsoft Windows afterwards because of how Linux utilizes different partition information than Microsoft Windows, causing errors during the install or first setup of Windows.

• Additional information and help about erasing your hard disk drive and starting over can also be found on document CH000186.
• Additional information about installing Windows 2000 can be found on document CH000544.
• Additional information about installing Windows 98 can be found on document CH000569.

Answer:

Below are steps on what the user should do to completely remove Linux from the hard disk drive and install Windows.

1. Boot from a bootable floppy diskette that contains the fdisk.exe and debug files.
2. Once at the MS-DOS prompt, you must delete all the partitions using the fdisk command. In some cases you may be unable to delete all the partitions. If this occurs, erase all the HDD information using the debug routine found on our debug page.
3. Recreate a primary partition using fdisk, or if you are installing Windows 2000 or Windows XP, run the setup and create the partitions through the setup program.
4. If you are installing Windows 95 or Windows 98, after the partition has been created and set as the active partition, format the partition using the format command.
5. Finally, for Windows 95 and Windows 98 users, run the setup program for your Operating System.