How to switch from Linux to Windows on a brand new laptop?

Question

I have a Sony Vaio laptop with Linux Red Flag on it with its recovery partition. Its a brand new laptop and Red Flag is the OS that came by default. I want to erase it completely and install Windows 7 on it.
Can someone guide me with a stepwise procedure to do so.
I have heard that Linux cannot be completely erased until a windows OS is installed. Is it true?
So basically two things that I would like to know :
1 > How to install Windows 7 on this laptop.
2 > Once its installed how to erase linux completely with recovery and make the partitions accordingly?

Please provide me with detailed steps as this is the first time I am going to do it – and also as its a new laptop I am little conscious.

Answer 1

When you install windows you have the option to format the entire hard drive before installing windows. That will remove linux entirely.

The only question is the specs on your laptop. Is it form China and does i have all the required specs to run windows 7: optical drive, ram, cpu, etc.

If you do not have an optical drive see the second link.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Red Flag Linux is a Chinese Linux distribution developed by Red Flag Software. It's interesting that you would have a new computer with this installed, unless you live in China itself.



Download Gparted, burn it to a CD and boot the CD. This is a Partitioning programs Linux uses. Delete all the partitions one at a time and click apply. When there is a long empty box click on this and check new and format to NTSF. When this is all done you have a Clean hard drive to Install windows on. You boot the Windows CD and install Windows.



The first thing you want to do is down load all the Window hard ware drivers from Sony and place the on a Data CD. You will need theses drivers for the Sony computer after you install Windows.

Answer 3

Your fastest easiest but not necessarily cheapest option is to buy a new HDD ( i would go with SSD drive...Solid StAte Drive) and install windows on that. Keep the old HDD as an emergency factory spare. One thing to consider in moving to win7 is checking driver support for your hardware. Consult the Sony website for that info. If you are not wanting to buy a new HDD you can simply "over write" Linux with windows. This can be accomplished by running the win7 disk in your laptop providing that your bios is set to boot from cd before the internal HDD. When installing windows you will not necessarily over write Linux completely you may over write some sectors but not necessarily all. Once windows is installed it will see the whole disk as a boot partition unless you config differently on setup hence making the other Linux sectors "writable" to windows. So when you write new data to the disk say a text file it may overwrite more of the Linux sectors....if you really want to destroy all of Linux first you will need to purchase an external drive enclosure for the laptop drive. You can then format the disk via another computer then install windows on the newly formatted drive....

PS this is pure opinion and I do not warrant or insure my thoughts in any way. Please do not use this as a gold standard but more as a starting point... Do some research and read a lot of white papers...best way to learn. Best of luck to you in your ventures

Answer 4

Red Flag Linux