# Completely Removing an old OS **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-removing-an-old-os/39159 "2000-10-31T23:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-removing-an-old-os/39159/1 "2000-10-31T23:27:09Z")
Is there any way to have Windows completely erase itself? Would reformatting C: work? Perhaps more importantly, would Linux work on a hard drive formatted by Windows, or can you reformat the drive to be Linux-compatable during installation? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecccb3/32.png) [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-removing-an-old-os/39159/2 "2000-10-31T23:48:21Z")
I’ve never installed Linux, but if you can install it on a completely blank disk, then the easiest way to remove Windows is to remove the partition. Boot from a Windows startup disk. Run Fdisk and remove all the partitions. Then boot from the Linux setup disk and let it partition and format the drive. Several people here have suggested to have both a Windows and a Linux partitions on the same disk, so you may want to think about that option. I can’t help you set that up, though. Jim ---
**Author:** ![Caldazar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Caldazar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldazar)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-removing-an-old-os/39159/3 "2000-10-31T23:50:57Z")
Well, reformatting your C: drive definitely would wipe out Windows. Unfortunately, it would also wipe out and imporant information saved on the drive. A better solution, assuming you’re just destroying windows so that you can re-install a clean copy of it, is to wipe out the C:\WINDOWS and C:\PROGRAM FILES folders. You have to do this from MS-DOS, of course. I believe there’s a way to install Linux on a FAT16-based partition, but I’ve never tried it myself. I usually just create a partition and format it appropriately during the installation. If you want to have both Windows and Linux on your system at the same time, the best way to do this would be to split your hard disk into two partitions, one formatted with FAT16 or FAT32 for Windows use and one formatted as an EXT2 partition for Linux. Install Windows first, then Linux. Linux will install a bootstrap program called LILO. When you boot your machine, you’ll get a LILO prompt, at which point you can choose whether to boot into Windows or Linux. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/completely-removing-an-old-os/39159/4 "2000-10-31T23:51:33Z")
You reformat, create two partitions, install Windows on one partition & Linux on the other. Then you need a program that lets you select the boot system.