Hi, I initially installed SuSE Linux 9.3 Pro on the same hard drive as my windows xp. SuSE partitioned for the Linux installation. I would like to uninstall Linux, return the partitioned disk space to windows, then install SuSE on a separate hard drive. Here's the question: Can I do this without third party partitioning software? If so, how. Thanks.

You can do all that from within the Suse installation. You may need to select "expert" mode or similar to allow you to manually partition. Just remove the old linux one, create a fat/ntfs partition instead and choose to install suse on the other hard drive. This is assuming that you don't mind losing any data on the old linux partition....

Thanks again 3Dave. The uninstall / installation went well. Everything is fine except I haven't yet figured out how to merge the old linux drive (now windows drive g) with the windows c drive (from which g was originally partitioned for linux). I do have it formatted in NTFS. Any suggestions?

The unused space will only be used as a new drive unless you use a third-party tool such as Partition Magic 8. Windows by itself will only make new drive, not expand old drives.

You can use suse to resize it....afaik later versions can handle resizing of ntfs partitions. Try qtparted if you have it installed. Delete the old linux partition and then resize the windoze one to fill the disk. Alternatively, rather than resizing you could make the old linux partition into a separate fat partition to share files between the two OSs....writing to ntfs under linux can be a bit tricky. NB always back up any important data before playing around with partition tables etc!

Got everything done and all is well. Thanks 3Dave and firedrow for all the sound advice and suggestions.

You did a great job. Maybe a little late, but next time think also about this: you can boot a Live GNU/Linux from cd (Knoppix, Slax, DamsSmallLinux) and use Qtparted and/or another beautiful program (partimage, fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk , parted). http://www.partimage.org/ http://qtparted.sourceforge.net/ http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html Another option is to use Free FDISK The official FDISK of FreeDOS: http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/ Have fun...