19.3. Replacing Fedora with MS-DOS or legacy versions of Microsoft Windows
In DOS and Windows, use the Windows fdisk
utility to create a new MBR with the undocumented flag /mbr
. This
ONLY
rewrites the MBR to boot the primary DOS partition. The command should look like the following:
fdisk /mbr
If you need to remove Linux from a hard drive and have attempted to do this with the default DOS (Windows) fdisk
, you will experience the
Partitions exist but they do not exist
problem. The best way to remove non-DOS partitions is with a tool that understands partitions other than DOS.
To begin, insert the Fedora CD #1 and boot your system. Once you have booted off the CD, a boot prompt appears. At the boot prompt, type:
linux rescue
. This starts the rescue mode program.
You are prompted for your keyboard and language requirements. Enter these values as you would during the installation of Fedora.
Next, a screen appears telling you that the program attempts to find a Fedora install to rescue. Select
Skip
on this screen.
After selecting
Skip
, you are given a command prompt where you can access the partitions you would like to remove.
First, type the command list-harddrives
. This command lists all hard drives on your system that are recognizable by the installation program, as well as their sizes in megabytes.
Warning
Be careful to remove only the necessary Fedora partitions. Removing other partitions could result in data loss or a corrupted system environment.
To remove partitions, use the partitioning utility parted
. Start parted
, where
/dev/hda
is the device on which to remove the partition:
parted /dev/hda
Using the print
command, view the current partition table to determine the minor number of the partition to remove:
print
The print
command also displays the partition's type (such as linux-swap, ext2, ext3, ext4 and so on). Knowing the type of the partition helps you in determining whether to remove the partition.
Remove the partition with the command rm
. For example, to remove the partition with minor number 3:
rm 3
Important
The changes start taking place as soon as you press [Enter], so review the command before committing to it.
After removing the partition, use the print
command to confirm that it is removed from the partition table.
Once you have removed the Linux partitions and made all of the changes you need to make, type quit
to quit parted
.
After quitting parted
, type exit
at the boot prompt to exit rescue mode and reboot your system, instead of continuing with the installation. The system should reboot automatically. If it does not, you can reboot your computer using
Control
+
Alt
+
Delete
.