Remove Linux

I want to ditch Linux and get back to Windows
How to make a dual-boot system just boot Windows.

If you have the Windows XP Install CD

 * 1) Re-execute the Microsoft Windows&reg; installation program, instructing it to "repair" the installation.  The installer will rewrite the MBR (Master Boot Record) on the hard-drive so that Windows is loaded directly.  Notice that this alone will not actually remove the Linux materials from your hard drive.


 * 1) If you wish to completely eliminate Linux, you must also remove the disk partitions which now contain various parts of Linux, replacing them with partition-types that Windows recognizes and reformatting the areas appropriately.

If you don't have the Windows Install Media
First, back up critical Windows data, just in case. Using a Live CD like Puppy Linux, run Gparted, a graphical partition manager remove all the Linux partitions. Create a Linux new partition of 5MB, and format it to be completely empty. Select ext2 as file system type is fine. Re-grow the FAT or NTFS windows partition to re-claim the space from Linux.

The remaining command line instructions assume that that the new tiny Linux partition is named "/dev/hda3", that you've used the grub bootloader, and that the Puppy Linux LiveCD is being used.

mkdir /mnt/hda3 mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 ln -s /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc /usr/lib/grub/i386-t2 $EDITOR /mnt/hda3/boot/grub/menu.lst grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/hda3 /dev/hda3
 * 1) This shouldn't be necessary, but Puppy Linux 2.15CE had a bug to workaround
 * 1) On Puppy I use "e3vi" as the editor, which works like vi
 * 1) Now, remove or comment out the lines which don't apply to the Windows partition, and save the file.

Hopefully, that worked! Reboot and see what happens. :)