Some times it is very useful to boot from a Linux installation CD or DVD in order to use tools straight from the CD/DVD. You are not necessarily looking to install Linux but simply to make use of its low level software tools.
There are a number of ways to do this but I shall list just two as they are the most familiar to me.
1) Using the first CD or DVD from RedHat/Fedora/CentOS media :-
Set your BIOS to boot from your CD-ROM drive
When the boot process reaches the boot> prompt, enter "linux rescue" and hit return, this will provide you with a number of boot options, choose the most basic as we don't need any networking functionality.
This will load linux into memory and provide access to the programs held on the CD/DVD.
The following command will allow you to wipe the beginning of your hard drive thus removing key information about anything held on the drive.
See below
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dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=50000
or
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=50000
depending on whether you have a SATA drive or an IDE drive respectively.
2) Boot from a Puppy Linux CD, start a terminal window then follow the same dd commands described above.
Upon begining an operating system installation it will appear that the hard drive is groundbreaking new and completely blank.
This is the best way to achieve a clean and uncluttered install of any Windows operating system.
If you have a terribly corrupted Windows operating system then first of all you will want to blank the hard drive first. This can be easily achieved by booting from a Linux boot disk then using the "dd" command to write directly to the hard drive. I shall cover the Linux boot in another post. Place your Windows install CD into the CD-ROM drive and restart the computer. As the BIOS starts, hit DEL or F2 or whatever your BIOS requires to enter the setup and set it to boot from the CD-ROM drive first, followed by the hard drive you wish to install Windows on. Save your settings and restart the computer. This should now start the Windows installation procedure.
See below
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Choosing a partition size is completely at your discretion, personally if I am only installing Windows on the computer then I choose the whole of the hard drive. From XP onward only a quick format is required.
The vital thing is that you have or obtain any required drivers for your hardware. This is not always provided if you have an "off the shelf" computer. The main thing is that Windows recognises your network interface. If you have this working then you can get back on the internet and download those missing drivers. I shall cover this matter in another post.
