Deleting unused packages stuck in boot

[cstrike77]

I found out much too late not to use apt-get to install updates. I deleted all partitions, even went as far as dragging out XP and deleting/formatting HD. There seems to be a hidden partition that I'm not finding & would like to be rid of. I ran into abt the same thing w/Debian before, only it was a boot partition. I thought I used DSL to be rid of it, fdisk didn't work.

How can I un-partition and reinstall?

Update, I just re-formatted drive again, the problem seems to be that there is a locked, hidden partition that grub lives on. I broke out my copy of 98 and fdisked the drive, formatted as boot, then rebooted computer, it tries to start grub.

Tkanks!

[brianp124]

To totally delete everything on the hard drive use the dd command to fill the drive with zeroes - as follows:

1 - Using the liveCD, log into a terminal as root
2 - Determine the HD name (if not already known) using fdisk -l  (that's minus lower case L).  This will commonly be either /dev/sda or /dev/hda
3 - dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/[your HD] bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

This will take quite a while to complete depending upon the size of your HD - and there is no progress bar with dd

Once zeroed the drive is ready to be partitioned (I use the gParted liveCD for this) and for PCLOS to be installed

Please note that dd will not erase an HPA (host protected area) if present on the HD.  See the link below for more on dd

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn-the-dd-command-362506/

Edit: Added the HPA note and link

[muungwana]

you can use "apt-get" to update your system from the terminal. The proper command sequence to update the system from the terminal is "apt-get update" followed by "apt-get dist-upgrade".

This distribution does not use "apt-get upgrade", only "apt-get dist-upgrade".

[menotu]

You can also download GParted as an iso and burn it to CD and boot from it - you'll then be able to see any "lurking" partitions and setup your disk as you like.

GParted can be found: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

Note: if this disk had Windows installed on it, it may be an "hidden" partition which has your Windows Restore files on it, so if you haven't got a Windows install CD/DVD (and think you may need to use Windows again) I would be reluctant to wipe it clean.

If on the other hand you KNOW you are not going to use it again you can remove it completely and start with a clean hard disk. (Then again, it may not be a Windows Restore partition!)

Once you've got your "clean! formatted disk, you can then partition it the way you want it setup for PCLOS.

Another very good disk utility - more comprehensive than just GPartedi - is SystemRescueCd (http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page)

If you have data on the disk that you want keep you should boot using a LiveCD and copy it to a USB stick or some such storage before going ahead with deleting your files with dd commands or using GParted etc