ok, i've got some problems here. my laptop had been giving me problems for a while. i had dropped it after getting my PC (which is 3x faster), and broke the latch on the CD drive. well, i fixed that. the display is also funky now, but with an external moniter, it's fine. well......
i couldn't get windows to go through an install. was having problems with it. it kept locking up. well, the hard drive had been formatted during the windows 98se install, so i couldn't get into windows. so i attempted to see if i was having hardware or software problems. my solution...install linux md9.1. well, i cleared out the partitions on the hard drive (was split in 2 when windows was installed). i then went and let linux take the entire 4gb hard drive. the install went over fine. i booted into KDE and everything was good. well, then i decided i needed to try windows again, as the PC is the primary computer and i was trying to get the laptop up and running again so myself and the wife could use it with windows (more for her than me really). so i went and started a re-install of linux, got to the partitioning section, formatted the hard drive completely, restarted the laptop, and went and started with a windows install. the windows install went over smoothly, or so i thought. the laptop started up after the install, and it went to the linux boot options. "Houston, we have a problem." there's no option for windows, and linux isn't on the laptop anymore. ok, thought i could handle this.......i went and restarted with the windows CD, went into MSDOS, deleted the hard drive, re-installed the hard drive, restarted the laptop with the windows Cd in again. it then told me that the hard drive was not formatted and i needed to format to continue with an install. i thought i had fixed it. re-installed windows. rebooted the system....the linux dual boot option came up again! the hard drive was 100% unconditionally formatted according to windows. so did i really make a big mistake? the drive was set as a FAT32 drive. i don't know how to go in and remove the dual boot option so i can just put plain old windows on the laptop again. to anyone that can help, please keep in mind that you are giving advice to someone that knows NOTHING about programming. i'm COMPLETELY new to this stuff. i've said it in other e-mails to the list recently, but i'll say it again....basic linux starts in a week or so and until that starts, i'm completely clueless about programming. have i completely ruined my laptop for windows now? if i have, it's bitter sweet, because it'll give me a computer to experiment on with linux programming before i go and "mess up" the PC, but i'd like to have windows back on it again and have 2 computers in the house. thanks to all! Mike
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