uninstall Linspire 4.5

[Dick]

Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not let
me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have DOS? So
how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is there a
utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even Win XP
will not reach the root file.
--
Sincerely & thanks,
Dick

[Noel Paton]

Dick
You need to change the BIOS boot order so that your PC boots from the Floppy
first.
Then use FDISK and FORMAT to create a FAT32 partition in the normal way

--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp
"Dick" > wrote in message
...
> Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not
let
> me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have DOS? So
> how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is there
a
> utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even Win
XP
> will not reach the root file.
> --
> Sincerely & thanks,
> Dick
>
>

[Rick T]

Dick wrote:

> Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not let
> me use the Boot Disk for Win ME.

Currently your machine is still booting from the hard disk because you
haven't told it to check the floppy disk drive first. Follow Noel's
instructions to correct.

Is it because Lunix does not have DOS?

Linux indeed has a "DOS" if you mean a command-line interface. Though
last time I checked (quite awhile) booting from floppy disk*s* for
troubleshooting is a pain.

> So
> how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is there a
> utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even Win XP
> will not reach the root file.


How did you find Lindows anyways? Obviously you're not that happy with
it, but I'm curious as how it was to work with, stability, etc.



Rick

[Dick]

Thanks Noel & Rick for your quick response
That is not the problem. My computer has no installed floppy drive, but I do
have a USB floppy drive and it is set to boot-up floppy first. It does and
it accesses the floppy, but then it just goes ahead and boots up to Linspire
OS, like it ignores the floppy. I tried a Win XP and set the bios to boot on
CD Rom first. It sees the CD player and accesses the XP CD and says it is
something about scanning the hard drive to see if it can install. But that
is the end of it. I just sets there for 1/2 hour and does nothing. It is
like Linspire is blocking the boot-up out.
--
Sincerely & thanks,
Dick
"Dick" > wrote in message
...
> Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not
let
> me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have DOS? So
> how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is there
a
> utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even Win
XP
> will not reach the root file.
> --
> Sincerely & thanks,
> Dick
>
>

[Noel Paton]

Dick
Get the maintenance utility from your HD manufacturer, and use that to
reformat the HD - that should work, with any luck!
Otherwise, the only thing I can think of is to physically move the drive to
another box, as a Slave, and reformat from the OS there - then do the
required reformat/install back on your machine.


--
Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)

Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm

Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
or
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp
"Dick" > wrote in message
...
> Thanks Noel & Rick for your quick response
> That is not the problem. My computer has no installed floppy drive, but I
do
> have a USB floppy drive and it is set to boot-up floppy first. It does and
> it accesses the floppy, but then it just goes ahead and boots up to
Linspire
> OS, like it ignores the floppy. I tried a Win XP and set the bios to boot
on
> CD Rom first. It sees the CD player and accesses the XP CD and says it is
> something about scanning the hard drive to see if it can install. But that
> is the end of it. I just sets there for 1/2 hour and does nothing. It is
> like Linspire is blocking the boot-up out.
> --
> Sincerely & thanks,
> Dick
> "Dick" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> > Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not
> let
> > me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have DOS?
So
> > how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is
there
> a
> > utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even
Win
> XP
> > will not reach the root file.
> > --
> > Sincerely & thanks,
> > Dick
> >
> >
>
>

[Rick T]

Dick wrote:
> Thanks Noel & Rick for your quick response
> That is not the problem. My computer has no installed floppy drive, but I do
> have a USB floppy drive and it is set to boot-up floppy first. It does and
> it accesses the floppy, but then it just goes ahead and boots up to Linspire
> OS, like it ignores the floppy. I tried a Win XP and set the bios to boot on
> CD Rom first. It sees the CD player and accesses the XP CD and says it is
> something about scanning the hard drive to see if it can install. But that
> is the end of it. I just sets there for 1/2 hour and does nothing. It is
> like Linspire is blocking the boot-up out.

The floppy drive it's trying to boot from is the one on the standard
floppy drive connector (which you don't have hooked up)... not having
your motherboard, I'm not sure about how you'd go about telling it to
boot from a USB floppy, perhaps one of the Booting Options is "Boot from
USB". The motherboard manual might (possibly) shed some light on the
subject.

I'm also unfamiliar with the normal behaviour of your variety of XP
Install CD (MS Full, OEM, Upgrade or some sort of third-party Restore
Disk maybe?), but if the Install program is expecting to find a properly
partitioned/formatted disk, it might be confused by the Lindows disk
type (which is almost certainly not FAT32 or NTFS...(?)).

Lindows isn't capable of "blocking" anything if you don't boot into it.


Rick

[Dick]

Thanks Noel,
I wondered if I would have to install another hard drive and go from there.
If what you say works I can save some money and keep this 60g , 7500rpm hard
drive. Is a great machine if I can just figure how to get the hard drive
repartioned and reformatted. Thanks again Noel.

--
Sincerely & thanks,
Dick
"Noel Paton" > wrote in message
...
> Dick
> Get the maintenance utility from your HD manufacturer, and use that to
> reformat the HD - that should work, with any luck!
> Otherwise, the only thing I can think of is to physically move the drive
to
> another box, as a Slave, and reformat from the OS there - then do the
> required reformat/install back on your machine.
>
>
> --
> Noel Paton (MS-MVP 2002-2004, Win9x)
>
> Nil Carborundum Illegitemi
> http://www.btinternet.com/~winnoel/millsrpch.htm
>
> Please read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm on how to post messages to NG's
> or
> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2001/Mar01/Mar27pmvp.asp
> "Dick" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Thanks Noel & Rick for your quick response
> > That is not the problem. My computer has no installed floppy drive, but
I
> do
> > have a USB floppy drive and it is set to boot-up floppy first. It does
and
> > it accesses the floppy, but then it just goes ahead and boots up to
> Linspire
> > OS, like it ignores the floppy. I tried a Win XP and set the bios to
boot
> on
> > CD Rom first. It sees the CD player and accesses the XP CD and says it
is
> > something about scanning the hard drive to see if it can install. But
that
> > is the end of it. I just sets there for 1/2 hour and does nothing. It is
> > like Linspire is blocking the boot-up out.
> > --
> > Sincerely & thanks,
> > Dick
> > "Dick" > wrote in message
> > ...
> > > Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> > > Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will
not
> > let
> > > me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have
DOS?
> So
> > > how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is
> there
> > a
> > > utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even
> Win
> > XP
> > > will not reach the root file.
> > > --
> > > Sincerely & thanks,
> > > Dick
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>

[Dick]

I want to thank you for all your help and advice. I did find a way to
install Win XP and it did delete the Linspire OS. Again thanks.
--
Sincerely & thanks,
Dick
"Dick" > wrote in message
...
> Ho do I uninstall and reformat my hard drive that has Linux version of
> Linspire installed. I want to reinstall Win ME, but Linspire OS will not
let
> me use the Boot Disk for Win ME. Is it because Lunix does not have DOS? So
> how do delete Linspire and repartition and format the hard drive? Is there
a
> utility out there that will do the job? I really need your help. Even Win
XP
> will not reach the root file.
> --
> Sincerely & thanks,
> Dick
>
>

[Rick T]

Dick wrote:

> I want to thank you for all your help and advice. I did find a way to
> install Win XP and it did delete the Linspire OS. Again thanks.

Super, though I'm still curious as to what user reaction is to
Lindows/spire and how it compares with M$ offerings.


Rick

[Richard G. Harper]

Too bad you missed it, for a while they were offering it for free via a
download.

I installed it and played with it for a bit and honestly wasn't really
impressed with it. For a "Linux" distro it was quite good, but the desktop
acts differently from the Windows desktop in some fundamental ways. The
office suite doesn't do a very good job handling complex Word documents nor
Excel spreadsheets. Web browsing is OK and IM support is fair. I never
tried out the mail/news clients because I didn't want to mess up my existing
accounts and message counts.

I find the concept of having to rent programs outright repugnant. Sure, you
can install anything you want for free if you can find it elsewhere but
installing a program on almost any Linux OS is not a game for the
faint-hearted. This is (IMHO) one area where RedHat/Fedora is
head-and-shoulders above the rest as they have installer packages that work
almost as well as their Windows counterparts.

If you have little to no exposure to Windows you might like it. But if
you're looking to use it as a replacement for Windows I'd personally say,
"It ain't there yet." :-)

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Win9x]
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


"Rick T" > wrote in message
...
> Dick wrote:
>
> > I want to thank you for all your help and advice. I did find a way to
> > install Win XP and it did delete the Linspire OS. Again thanks.
>
> Super, though I'm still curious as to what user reaction is to
> Lindows/spire and how it compares with M$ offerings.
>
>
> Rick

[Rick T]

Richard G. Harper wrote:
> Too bad you missed it, for a while they were offering it for free via a
> download.
>
> I installed it and played with it for a bit and honestly wasn't really
> impressed with it. For a "Linux" distro it was quite good, but the desktop
> acts differently from the Windows desktop in some fundamental ways. The
> office suite doesn't do a very good job handling complex Word documents nor
> Excel spreadsheets.

"Open Office"? <shudder> they actually made that more of a hog than MS
Office.

> Web browsing is OK and IM support is fair. I never
> tried out the mail/news clients because I didn't want to mess up my existing
> accounts and message counts.
>
> I find the concept of having to rent programs outright repugnant. Sure, you
> can install anything you want for free if you can find it elsewhere but
> installing a program on almost any Linux OS is not a game for the
> faint-hearted. This is (IMHO) one area where RedHat/Fedora is
> head-and-shoulders above the rest as they have installer packages that work
> almost as well as their Windows counterparts.

Last time I installed Linux the CL dialer worked fine, and the GUI which
handled it didn't :/ <toss> (quite a while ago, mind)

>
> If you have little to no exposure to Windows you might like it. But if
> you're looking to use it as a replacement for Windows I'd personally say,
> "It ain't there yet." :-)
>

After 4 years of WinME, I'm still suffering from CL withdrawal (yeah I
know, Art, Win98 <g>) but (and this is despite having several pieces of
paper which say "Unix Admin" on them in all sorts of flavours) the GUI
just ain't up to it for the day to day pap that M$ excells at.



Rick

[Richard G. Harper]

"Rick T" > wrote in message
...

> "Open Office"? <shudder> they actually made that more of a hog than MS
> Office.

That's my biggest gripe - the Sun JVMs. The MS JVM was mean, lean and you
barely even noticed when it kicked in. The Sun JVM seems to have gone the
way of most other software - you can't just install what you need, you have
to cart along a bunch of luggage.

Just Friday I got to mediate a fight between two programs that couldn't
agree on the JVM version - one wanted 1.3.1_11 and the other wanted 1.3.1_10
and refused to run on the _11 release. Fortunately the program that
insisted on _11 only needed it to run its installer so I was able to remove
_11 and put the _10 release on for everyday use.

> After 4 years of WinME, I'm still suffering from CL withdrawal (yeah I
> know, Art, Win98 <g>) but (and this is despite having several pieces of
> paper which say "Unix Admin" on them in all sorts of flavours) the GUI
> just ain't up to it for the day to day pap that M$ excells at.

Since the CLI that I cut my teeth on was MS-DOS 2.1 I don't notice that much
of a change, even under XP. <G> And yep, I usually keep a command prompt
open just about all day long. There are too many things it's too easy to
type instead of clicking through five or six dialogs just to get there. ;-)

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Win9x]
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* for the benefit of all. Private mail is usually not replied to.
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

[Rick T]

Richard G. Harper wrote:

>
> Just Friday I got to mediate a fight between two programs that couldn't
> agree on the JVM version - one wanted 1.3.1_11 and the other wanted 1.3.1_10
> and refused to run on the _11 release. Fortunately the program that
> insisted on _11 only needed it to run its installer so I was able to remove
> _11 and put the _10 release on for everyday use.

That's right up there with Flash's latest not installing on WinME. (98
sure 98se sure winnt sure win2k sure winxp sure winme <gong>)

spent a few weeks trying to weasel IBM's latest JRE out of them (no
luck). I was seriously unimpressed with Sun's "We won so here's an extra
8MB of bloat" attitude.


Rick

[Akuma26]

Linspire is a JOKE.

I'm sure a lot of people will feel comfortable using it, but it is still
nothing more than a Knock-off from Microsoft. They have tried to make
it different, but the same and yet it can't even run simple things such
as setup.exe or any executable programs. I'm really not qualified to
rate or have a say about Linspire, but to be honest... it has only been
a Headache. Reminds me of Windows 95 when it first came out. NOTHING
would work! Except that Microsoft fixed it really quick where as Linspire
has lots of work to do.

I can't even freaking get rid of Linspire. They suck.