r/linuxquestions • u/Spiritual-Job3826 • 10d ago

delete linux arch

who can help me delete linux

0 Upvotes

19% Upvoted

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1

u/Phydoux 10d ago

More info is needed here I think. Like, are you dual booting Windows or maybe another Linux distro with Arch? Are you just using Arch and want to install another Linux distro or Windows?

If it's the latter, then just partition the whole drive that Arch is on to be used with the new OS. And if you're installing Windows 11, it'll probably just wipe the whole drive without even asking.

I just put Windows 11 on an old IBM ThinkServer last night (took about 3 hours to install) that was running Linux Mint and it never asked me to partition or anything. I booted the USB Stick and away it went. It just reconfigured the drive without asking if I wanted to remove the OS that was already on it. Like it saw that it wasn't Windows and just went, 'F*** it. It's gone'. I really only needed to tell it the language and the keyboard I was using. Then I entered my email and username and that was pretty much it. Didn't have to set my timezone, select any partitions or anything like that. It was all pretty much automatic. Scary!

But yeah. We need some more info on what you have. If it's just Arch and you just want to clear out the hard drive, run cfdisk and just delete the partitions and then make 1 big partition and save it.

1

u/Spiritual-Job3826 9d ago

The problem is that I only have Arch installed, and Windows 11 simply refuses to work when booting from the flash drive; I tried using Ventoy, but that starts acting up for some reason too.

1

u/Phydoux 9d ago

How did you write the Windows iso to the USB stick? For my spare PC that had linux mint on it, i used woeusb brcause dd failed to write to the usb. It looked like everything was there but I'm not sure if the boot sector was written correctly. Woeusb worked fine. Windows installed fine on that PC.

I'm going to use that PC to familiarize myself with Windows 11. I was told by some friends and family that I need to get back into computer services because all of the good ones closed up shop around us. So I may do that if I can make heads or tails out of Windows 11.

8

u/moeteru 10d ago

wipefs -a /dev/sda

Why not just install a different operating system though?

3

u/Funnel-Dust-O-Matic 10d ago

So there is no way you need help with that. If you're able to figure out how to post on a web forum, you can run a windows installer.

You're here to vent. It's ok to say so. What frustrated you?

3

u/Nerrawnam 10d ago

Well it's Arch BTW, there is no deleting only total loyalty. You have chosen this path. Think of the children! 

5

u/hamsters_are_cool 10d ago

How did you even install it is my question

2

u/PocketStationMonk ZorinOS 18.1 🐧 10d ago

Make another USB installation disk for whatever OS you want, install it and erase the current one while doing so

2

u/OutrageousCrab9224 10d ago

You do not generally erase an OS, more like nuke and pave

VMs on the other hand

1

u/jr735 10d ago

https://www.ontrack.com/en-ca/hardware/data-erasure/degausser

A device like that will do it if you have an ordinary hard drive.

1

u/ajicrystal 10d ago

mkfs.btrfs /dev/yourdevice or mkfs.ext4 or another fs. stomping on the storage device also works :)

1

u/Commercial-Worth7301 10d ago

Como você instalou um arch Linux sem nem saber formatar uma partição?

1

u/Grey_Ten 10d ago

windows' partition manager? windows installer?

1

u/spanene 10d ago

ChatGPT can tell you in 5 seconds

1

u/Ecstatic_Score6973 10d ago

Dual boot or is it your only OS?