Partion ERROR! Help

[Chris-the dude]

Alright Techs of the world, I've got one for you:

I messed up my hard drive partitions myself(its not a bad hard drive). I'm wondering if there is any sort of software(preferably free) that allows you to wipe out everything on the hard drive including partitions so that its like how it comes from the manufacturer. The story about how I screwed it up is below if you care to read.

I've got this machine which I'm using to experiment with linux on. I wanted to wipe the original installation clean and start over with a new one, but I wasn't sure how to go about that so I stuck my windows 98 boot disk in and ran fdisk with the intention of putting a fat32 partition on and formatting. Unfortunately fdisk could not properly read the linux partitions. I made some change in fdisk (defined a new logical drive). After restarting I tried to run disk druid and it told me a partition error, followed by the statement "this should not happen":eek:, and then the program ended.

Thanks in advance for any input.

Chris

[Jon]

Depending on the manufacturer, they usually come with disks that have low level format utilities on them. Maxtor, WD and I believe Seagate all come with these and can also be downloaded from their websites.

Manufacturer's site is where I'd be heading if you're looking for free because they all are.

[A380]

You don't need to low level format your hdd.
What you've got to do is just deleting all the Partitions on the hdd. and then create the new ones as you want them to be. Format them and ready.
Partition Magic + Boot Magic is great for that. It's not for free, but it's the best you can get! fdsik can only handle FAT partitions and maybe delete a NTFS partition. But no EXT2...

That's what you do for free:
Boot up with your Linux cd, as if you would install Linux. When it comes to setting up your partitions, delete all the linux partitions. If possible the fat ones too.
The fat ones can also be deleted with fdisk later on.
then just cancel the setup and all the partitions are gone.
you can check that by entering fdisk. the hdd should be free.

when you change your partitions or format your partitions, then all your data is going to get lost!!!
A380

[Chris-the dude]

A380, I don't think this will work because I've already tried using disk druid which is linux's partioning software.

Jon, do low level formats also delete partition information?

[Xaotic]

LLF will clear all data and partitions, as well as clearing the MBR and landing zones.

[A380]

I once installed Linux, and it crashed during install. Only the Linux partition programm could remove the partition. fdisk can't do that.

You want to delete all partitions right?
So just take fdisk to delete all fat ones, take the linux one to delete all the Ext2 and Swap partition.
that's all. I did that a thousand times, and know that this works 100%. Nobody ever needs to low level format.
A380