How to Uninstall Linux

August 5, 2008 · Filed Under Linux · Comment 

Installing Linux can be a fairly easy process, create the partition and just boot to the CD, but when you want to uninstall it when you might get stuck.

Unlike normal software and programs, there is no uninstall button. You may think that you can just wipe the partition that you installed Linux on, but this will result in a corrupted MBR (Master Boot Record).

In this guide I will go through how to uninstall Linux when you are dual-booting with Windows XP and I will also go through how to uninstall Linux when you are dual-booting with Windows Vista.

Windows XP

  1. Make a backup, just in case something goes wrong.
  2. Windows XP is quite simple, at least its easier than Vista. First you have to revert the boot loader back to the default XP boot loader (right now you will be using the Linux boot loader, Grub). To do this just boot from you XP recovery CD that came with your computer and issue the commands “FIXMBR” and “FIXBOOT”.
  3. Now restart your computer and it should automatically boot into XP. If it does not then you need to make sure that you issued the commands from before using the XP recovery CD.
  4. Now you need to use some hard disk partition managing software to wipe the Linux partition and format it as NTFS for Windows. You can do this with almost all partitioning software (Partition Magic is good).

Now you are done. Next time you turn on your computer it should boot into XP and you should be able to use all the space that Linux occupied before.

Windows Vista

  1. Make a backup in case there is a problem.
  2. Boot into Vista like you normally would.
  3. Download EasyBCD from http://www.neosmart.net/
  4. Install and run EasyBCD.
  5. In EasyBCD, on the left, click “Manage Bootloader”. Then in the “Bootloader Installation Options” part of the window, choose “Reinstall the Vista Bootloader” and then click the “Write MBR” button. This will overwrite the Linux Grub boot loader with the default one for Windows Vista.
  6. In Vista, click the start menu and then control panel. In the control panel click “System and Maintenance”. Scroll down to the bottom and click “Create and format hard disk partitions”. In the window that opens you should see all the partitions on your hard disk. Right click on the partition that you have Linux installed on and then click “Delete Volume…”. You should also have a smaller Swap partition for Linux, do the same for that.
  7. Now right click on the new empty space and click “Format”.  Give the new partition a name, select NTFS as the File System and click ok.
  8. Once that has finished, reboot your computer and it should boot into Vista and you should have an extra partition with all free space that Linux used to be on.

So now you can uninstall Linux :) Make sure that you take a backup, you only realise what you have when it is gone.

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