Removing Linspire??

[ImUseless]

My friend called me over the weekend to see if I could help him
remove Linspire from a 40GB WD drive-Im not sure how to do
it since it seems a DOS boot disk doesnt recognize the partition!

The disk is part of a frys $200 pc that was preloaded with some
version of Linspire. The original owner deleted files that make the
disk unmountable so the pc was given to my friend.

We simply want to completetly remove Linspire and put the WD
drive back to FACTORY STATE so we can partition the drive and
install it in his Windows box as a primary slave drive. He doesnt
have any Linspire disk to boot with just the drive.

What tools do we need to completely remove linspire and prepare
the drive for a DOS fdisk partition/format? Maybe even some steps
because I have no experience with Linspire/Linux/Lindows etc.

After the removal of the Linspire partition will we need to restore
the master boot record by running fdisk /mbr before we partition
and format the drive?

XP didnt recognize the drive when installed but the windows box's
bios did see the WD drive.

Thanks In Advance!!!!!!!

 

[tribalsun]

Use PowerMax to take the drive back to factory specs. From there you can use your Windows disc and should have no worries.

edit -Though PowerMax is a Maxtor utility, it works for most if not all IDE hard drives.

 

[ImUseless]

I'll download Powermax and give it a shot-Thanks for the info.