Unable to reformat SATA HD

[SideshowMel 0]

I had previously posted some questions related to GRUB and a dual-hard-drive, dual-boot issue and had very helpful responses. Although my new problem may be Windows-related, I thought somebody here may have a suggestion, as it is hard to tell what is happening.

 

First let me say that my dual-boot is working fine, although I recently thought it wasn't. To make a long story short, I had incorrectly thought I needed to re-install Windows and reformat all partitions on my Seagate SATA HD because GRUB was loading Fedora fine, but for Windows it came up with a GRUB error. The actual issue of not being able to boot into Windows was solved with a simple

#gedit /etc/grub.conf

then I changed the WinXP entry from "hda(1,4)" to "hda(0,0)". Prior to trying that method, I simply tried putting the WinXP boot CD into the drive to reformat, which is where my actual question comes into play...

 

When the machine first begins to boot up, it says to "press any key to boot from CD," which I did. It then says "Checking hardware configuration" or something to that effect. It is at this point that it completely locks up. It never even gets to the blue install screen. I left it for 2 hours. I tried other install discs. I even tried it again just for giggles once I had fixed the GRUB issue, but the issue was still the same.

 

Again, I know this may be a Windows issue, and not only that, but it isn't at all critical (because I can boot into either OS just fine). I am only posting because if I ever need to reformat completely I will have this problem recur.

 

The reason I am posting this here is because I have Linux partitions, so it would be best to to ask a few questions here:

 

-Could this problem be that the Win install doesn't properly see the Linux partitions and is locking up trying to read from them?

 

-Is there a bootable, stand-alone utility which I can burn to cd which will just do a complete wipe of the HD?

 

Thanks for reading. I know I am more likely to get a good answer from Linux gurus than from Microsoft gurus. No rush, I'm sure other people have more critical issues to deal with before mine...

[danleff 0]

Quote:

First let me say that my dual-boot is working fine, although I recently thought it wasn't. To make a long story short, I had incorrectly thought I needed to re-install Windows and reformat all partitions on my Seagate SATA HD because GRUB was loading Fedora fine, but for Windows it came up with a GRUB error.

So, what you found out, was that when Grub does not see the Windows partition correctly (points to a wrong partition), then grub is able to be modified to boot Windows correctly.

By re-installing Windows, if that worked, you overwrite the grub bootloader and are no longer able to boot Linux.

Quote:

-Could this problem be that the Win install doesn't properly see the Linux partitions and is locking up trying to read from them?

From my experience, yes, this can happen. Windows wants the first partition of the boot drive. If there is a Linux partition there, say a Linux /boot partition, this will potentually confuse the Windows installer. A number of other hardware issues can also cause this lockup to happen.

Quote:

-Is there a bootable, stand-alone utility which I can burn to cd which will just do a complete wipe of the HD?

Yes several. PartitionMagic will make bootable floppies that will usually do the job. Seagate also had a cd based utility, that will format the drive to use as either a data drive, or prepare the drive for an operating system installation, like Windows. You can also do a "zero-write" on the drive to completely erase the drive, then prepaer it for either options mentioned. See there website and look for "diskwizard" under support downloads.

Actually Microsoft has an article, located here, that describes how to remove Linux from a system. Surprised? It makes note to use a linux based utility (fdisk - not the Windows fdisk) to remove the Linux partitions, then how to prepare the drive for a Windows installation.