Installation guide

Appendix B.

Removing Red Hat Enterprise Linux

To uninstall Red Hat Enterprise Linux from your x86-based system, you must remove the Red Hat

Enterprise Linux boot loader information from your master boot record (MBR).

Note

It is always a good idea to backup any data that you have on your system(s). Mistakes do happen

and can result in the loss all of your data.

In DOS and Windows, use the Windows fdisk utility to create a new MBR with the undocumented

ﬂag /mbr. This ONLY rewrites the MBR to boot the primary DOS partition. The command should

look like the following:

fdisk /mbr

If you need to remove Linux from a hard drive and have attempted to do this with the default DOS

(Windows) fdisk, you will experience the Partitions exist but they do not exist problem. The best

way to remove non-DOS partitions is with a tool that understands partitions other than DOS.

To begin, insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux CD #1 and boot your system. Once you have booted

off the CD, a boot prompt appears. At the boot prompt, type: linux rescue. This starts the rescue

mode program.

You are prompted for your keyboard and language requirements. Enter these values as you would

during the installation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Next, a screen appears telling you that the program attempts to ﬁnd a Red Hat Enterprise Linux install

to rescue. Select Skip on this screen.

After selecting Skip, you are given a command prompt where you can access the partitions you would

like to remove.

First, type the command list-harddrives. This command lists all hard drives on your system that

are recognizable by the installation program, as well as their sizes in megabytes.

Warning

Be careful to remove only the necessary Red Hat Enterprise Linux partitions. Removing other parti-

tions could result in data loss or a corrupted system environment.

To remove partitions, use the partitioning utility parted. Start parted, where /dev/hda is the

device on which to remove the partition:

parted /dev/hda

Using the print command, view the current partition table to determine the minor number of the

partition to remove: