how to reformat/erase a disk with fedora installed?

[Jeff]

I thought this would be easy, and maybe I just dont know the command
(s) to do it.
Im trying to dual boot a brand new laptop hard drive. I installed
Fedora 10 first using
half the HD space, then thought it would be easy to put in XP and set
the second half
of the HD for XP. Well there seems to be an issue with XP not being
able to load once
you hit any key for XP to examine your system to setup, it never comes
back.

That being said, I want to erase or otherwise wipe out the linux
partition so that when
I boot the XP install disk it doesnt hang, THEN install Fedora after
XP is installed.

So how do I wipe it out or reformat it? I can get in with the rescue
CD (fedora),
but I dont think there is one command to format the drive.

Thanks for your help!

[Andrew Halliwell]

General rule of thumb is...
Always install windows first.

Windows doesn't like other operating systems sharing a drive and will
invariable erase the master boot record and replace it with its own,
rendering the other operating system unbootable.

If you install linux SECOND, it detects the windows partition and
automatically sets up dual boot.
--
| spi...@freenet.co.uk | Windows95 (noun): 32 bit extensions and a |
| | graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit |
| Andrew Halliwell BSc | operating system originally coded for a 4 bit |
| in |microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that|
| Computer Science | can't stand 1 bit of competition. |

[philo]

Boot with your Windows CD and from the installation
delete *all* partitions.

Now figure out the size of the partition you want Windows installed
on and create a partition of that space...
Leave the rest of the drive as free space...
then install Windows on the partition you've set aside for Windows

Now once that's done...

boot with your Linux cd
and use the free space to create your Linux partitions

[Leon Whyte]

Why would you not boot into the Linux cd and use it to boot into linux and
reinstall grub or lilo whichever you have in linux?

--
Leon
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
< running Linux >

[Bill Marcum]

You just need to fdisk to remove the linux partition.

[Bob]

ugh, I just figured it out with help from a friend.
I dont know why I couldnt get fdisk to do what I wanted before,
but it worked, now windows is loading.

Thanks for the replies and sorry for the bandwidth.

[tama]

You could have also logged into some live cd which has gparted and
delete your partitions. After which I dont think there would have been
any problems. Anyways gr8 to see that u r now out of that situation