I tried installing Linux-Mandrake 7.0 as a full install with no windows at all on a 200 mhz Pentium machine with 4.2g hard drive. It went in well and booted up fine about 3 times. Now it freezes on the localhost login. I really want to go back to Windows now and a bootable DOS disk will not recognize c: so that I can do an fdisk\mbr to clean it up and get back to business. Please help?!

A shame that you want to get back to decadent OSes :-( There should be ways to fix linux without erasing everything. Several possibilities: - format low density, then repartition if your bios allows it, you will need to recreate everything and that's risky if you're not an experienced user - boot from a linux boot disk and run fdisk (the one for linux is better than the one in Micrapsoft), you can then rewrite the MBR / partition table - (this one is if you're desperate) start the install of Mandrake and you get the graphical install which lets you choose what sort of partitions you want (you'll need customised / expert mode). You can rewrite your entire partition table this way (and still keep a linux native and swap to have a dual system :-) Good luck.

Visit the FAQ section of computing.net. The specific post you want is at: http://www.computing.net/faq/contentdos/clearhd.html And on that note, I wish more people would read the FAQ before posting redundant questions like that, everyone would save lots of time.

pop in your win 98 install disk reboot then it will ask you to load through hard drive or the cdrom choose cdrom navigate through the contents untill you find a program called gwn this program writed zeros to the whole hard drive

I have had verifiable,repeatable problems with hanging at boot or during installation on my Pentium 200MMX with Red Hat-based distros. Debian and Corel load and boot fine! This was with a variety of hard drives (I use swap racks). Give Corel 1.1 or Debian a try if you are not too irritated with Linux.

I found a good way to do it when I had the same problem. Go to this site for info. http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/HardDrive.htm It uses the same procedure as outlined above, but actually works. On another note, the previous posting that bashed people for not reading his particular FAQ was way out of line. Dont you think he would have done it by now if he knew where your FAQ was in the first place. Lighten up. When the question was asked, you didnt need to get on a soapbox for nothing.