Installing Win XP PRO in a ThizLinux computer...

Hi! My friend bought a computer (from someone else) that has ThizLinux installed...he wants to install WinXP Pro...and I have no idea how! I have searched for ThizLinux in the internet but I was surprised to find very little support...and no uninstallation information. I have tried booting up the computer with a windows boot disk...but when I want to format the harddrive...no matter what letter I put it says the drive does not exist. Anyone know what to do? I did something like this before, it was not ThizLinux though...the computer which had some form of linux, came with a disk that said to use to format the computer to get it ready for Windows...but not this one...any help would be greatly appreciated!

- Omar

 

If you want to clean the PC and start fresh (without the Linux version that was in there) you will be doing yourself a favor to get rid of the LILO (Linux equiv of the Microsoft MBR (Master Boot Record).

Do you want to remove Linux? Will the PC boot from a CD? Do you have a full install CD for XP?

 

I want a clean sweep and and install only WinXP...

I want to completely get rid of Linux and install just windows xp...thanks for the reply!

 

First a little Linux info

The Linux format command is mkfs also drives are not listed as C:, D:, E:, F:, etc.. but rather as hda, hdb, hdc, hdd,etc.. hda would be the Primary Master or C: under DOS/Windows. So mkfs /hda should format the harddrive into one big blank Linux filesystem. Also hda1, hda2, hda3, etc... are partitions on the same physical drive such as taking a single drive and cutting it into C:, D:, etc.. Another Linux command is rm -rf / (which will remove all files on the root filesystem). Of course none of these will work unless you can get to a command line prompt and you'll need root privileges also.

Now what to do I would first try to boot off a Win9x bootdisk then at the a:> type fdisk/mbr this will rewrite the mbr and get rid of LILO or Grub or whatever bootloader that is being used then at the a:> type fdisk choose to delete non-Dos partitions then create the partitions you want reboot, then format your drive(s) and install Windows. Of course this will only work if you can boot off a Win9x bootdisk and get to a DOS prompt.

Maybe this will help you out

Bubba169

 

That helps a lot!

Thank you very much for your help! I think that will do it...since I can boot with a win98 boot disk...I just got stuck because it wouldn't recognize the drives! Hey, you learn something new every day! THanks once again! You guys are lifesavers...

- Omar