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I originally installed Windows 7 on my computer. I am planning to replace it with Fedora. Later, how would I uninstall Windows 7? I read many threads, and am actually still confused as to what's the proper way to do it. For example, here http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/266305-32-erase-unwanted-partition the guy says
You must NOT Delete the first Partition that you want to clear out. Doing that risks damage to the HDD's Partition Table. BUT you CAN Format a Partition, which is NOT the same a Deleting the Partition.
So what am I supposed to do (I need to delete it to create free space right?) What happens if I delete a partition before formatting (and what if it has an operating system in it)? I actually deleted a partition with Ubuntu a long time ago without formatting it, and have had no problems. But I wanted to know what's the "right way" to delete a partition, and also if possible the "right way" to delete a partition with an OS on it.
Raekye
Posted 2013-06-03T06:21:23.257
Reputation: 103
Can you think of a reason why the "storage expert" on the linked site claimed that deleting that partition would cause damage to the partition table? – Chris – 2013-06-03T07:21:29.757
@Chris: The Master Boot Record (MBR) containing the partition table is located on the first sector of the drive, before the first partition, so I don't know what that self-proclaimed "expert" was talking about. – Karan – 2013-06-03T07:29:57.990
Thanks, that's just what I thought but was afraid I was missing something. – Chris – 2013-06-03T07:31:05.727
@Chris: Perhaps he was talking about not deleting the 100MB System Partition, which if it exists is the active boot partition. Someone who wants to delete a data partition but mistakenly deletes that instead would find Windows unbootable (although that's easily fixed using the setup media). – Karan – 2013-06-03T07:37:51.923
Yeah, I don't plan on deleting the Win7 system partition right away; as much as I'd prefer letting the installer do it, I want to keep it there for a while in case I forget something. So if I understand: 1. There's no need ever to format before deleting, and 2. It's safe to delete a partition with an OS on it? Also, When I go into Disk Management, I don't see any 100MB System Partition; it'd be safe to delete the C: drive (where windows is installed) later? – Raekye – 2013-06-03T13:52:39.880
@Raekye: 1. No, if you plan to delete a partition then there's no need to format it first. 2. Sure, but obviously you can't do so from within the OS itself. Also if you get rid of the partition with the boot manager files (generally the 100MB System Reserved partition), you'll need some sort of boot loader for your OS to boot. If you install Linux after Windows (that's the recommended order), Grub will take over and allow you to boot into either OS if you're dual-booting. – Karan – 2013-06-03T14:09:33.120
@Raekye: The 100MB System Reserved partition is not created if Windows is installed on a pre-partitioned drive. In this case the bootmgr files are most likely on your Windows partition. Once you install Linux you can easily delete the Windows partition whenever you want and update the Grub menu. See here for details. Deleting an OS partition will (should) not affect your data partitions.
– Karan – 2013-06-03T14:22:00.250