This is for everyone who for some reason have to format their hard drive again because they have messed up linux or windows XP. I've seen requests on how to do this quite a few times in the forum so here is how to do it. From the 4 times I have had to do this, I have not had a single problem with this and this should be fool-proof. Never the less, I have done simple instructions line-by-line for people to follow. You will need the following for this: 1) A windows 98 boot-disk with DEBUG.exe on it. If you do not have a windows 98 boot-disk then you can use a blank floppy diskette and download a boot-disk creator from here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm . If you don't have DEBUG.exe then you can copy it from a windows computer by searching for it using Find. 2) Careful concerntration How to make a hard drive back to its factory state: 1) Insert windows 98 bootdisk 2) When your computer turns on, press the key to enter the BIOS. This is ussually DEL on most computers. 3) Select the floppy drive as 1st boot up device, followed by the hard drive. 4) Save the changes. Reboot your computer. 5) Let the windows 98 boot disk ask whether to start computer with or without a CD-ROM. Choose it to start without a CD-ROM, since you are not required to use a CD-ROM. 6) Once it reaches the command prompt, typically <C:\WINDOWS\> , type 'a:' so you see this: <A:\>. 7) Type in the following: format c: 8) A warning will come up asking whether you are sure you want to do this. Select Y and press ENTER. 9) Wait for the formatting to finish. When it asks for a Volume Label just press ENTER. 10) Type in the following: debug 11) At the '-' prompt, type the following, followed by pressing ENTER: f 9000:0 200 0 12) Press 'a' and press ENTER. 13) Type in each line exactly, pressing ENTER everytimg you come to the end of a line: mov dx,9000 mov es,dx xor bx,bx mov cx,0001 mov dx,0080 mov ax,0301 int 13 int 20 14) Press ENTER 15) Press 'g' and press ENTER. Provided you entered everything correctly, the computer will display "Program terminated normally". 16) Press 'q' and press ENTER. 17) Check that the command prompt has <A:\>. If not then type: a: 18) Type in the following: format c: 19) A warning will come up asking whether you are sure you want to do this. Select Y and press ENTER. 20) Wait for the formatting to finish. When it asks for a Volume Label just press ENTER. And there you have it folks. You are now able to install windows or linux again, having successfully made your hard drive empty and getting rid of the linux partition information. References: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue63/okopnik.html http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm Ben, Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 512 LB Cache 512 DDR RAM PC2700 ATI Radeon 9200SE 128 DDR RAM Western Digital 80GB 7200 RPM

The hard drive's "factory state" will be completely unpartitioned and unformated. To get it like this just delete all the partitons with fdisk (either the linux version or DOS....sometimes the DOS version can have problems with linux partition). You might also be able to carry out a low level format via your BIOS or manufacturers tools. Why bother formating a partition to FAT when you want to install linux as it will have to delete the partition and use it's own partition type and file system? (eg linux swap has a partition type of 82, linux ext2 uses type 83) The same goes for windoze NT/2000/XP, you can delete, create and format partitions during setup. fair enough if you want to install win9x. I have NEVER needed to use debug to format drives to FAT, EXT2, reiser etc. I'm not flaming, but I think a lot of the above seems pointless.....

There is an easy way and a hard way to do things and it looks like you are doing it the hard way, real hard way!!! Either fdisk or cfdisk in Linux can achieve what you want to do so what's the point besides wasting a little time... taurus

I agree with 3Dave and taurus. If you go look at the referenced linuxgazette article, it points out the easy way to wipe the mbr and/or partition the drive is to use a floppy sized Linux distro like Tom's Root-Boot. The procedure as given seems pretty eccentric and long-winded to me - but then anyone who has 'had to do it 4 times' probably enjoys doing it.

what could be simpler and safer than typing x86 assembler code (with no misteaks) under windoze? of course, linux-only users need to purchase some version of win. to make things simpler the 5th time - How about saving your boot-sector(s) to diskette for restore. Or even fdisk -l to a file which you print out?

Dlonra, not entirely true. I have given a link to download a boot-disk creator if you look at the top. This was only supposed to be a solution to do in DOS. It assumed that a user may not have created a linux boot-disk. To me, this personally is a pretty easy method in terms of I know what is happening all along. Last time I tried a linux-solution for this I ended up messing up the hard drive. Ben, Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 512 LB Cache 512 DDR RAM PC2700 ATI Radeon 9200SE 128 DDR RAM Western Digital 80GB 7200 RPM

bsewell, as 3Dave said, are you describing a procedure that will intentionally result in your drive "be completely unpartitioned and unformated"? Does this mean you will have to reinstall everything:,losing personal data, settings and custom software previously installed? If so, there are better ways, many of them described above. BTW, if your goal is to wipe the disk, what does "messing up the hard drive" mean?