Hello,
So the laptop I have has issues (not specifically Fedora) and I intend to return it, and I want to remove the OS (Fedora 35).
What info do I need to provide to do it?
Thanks.
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Boot into windows and delete fedora partition with disk management or diskpart.
From bios select windows bootloader.
Hey, I’m back.
Sorry for the delay, I just made a new account because of the 20 reply limit (hopefully not an issue) after several tries and a few screams from rage as the account creation.
The laptop I purchased doesn’t come with Windows, and the picture attached shows the boot devices.
You will also need to delete the fedora grub directory /boot/efi/EFI/fedora. That can easily be done by booting to a live usb then mounting the efi partition on the hard disk and deleting that directory.
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Hey,
I’m back after some sleep and with a new account because of the 20 reply limit, my laptop didn’t come with any OS, so can I just remove it using the live method?
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What you asked does not clear what you want your device doesnot come with preinstalled os then install a os if you want you can install fedora.
I don’t want an OS, I intend to return the laptop, it didn’t come with an OS.
Yes then return it what we can do.
Yes you can.
Boot a live cd, then delete all partitions on the HDD/SSD using your preferred tool (such as Gnome Disks)
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The red button showing a minus will remove the partition. Remove one by one.
(Don’t mount them before removing them, meaning, don’t press the play button. In case they are mounted, press the Stop button to unmount.)
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Should I remove every single one?
The EFI one is the default the laptop came with, I believe.
It is the only one that was shown in boot devices when I got the laptop.
Can’t answer that for you. I am pretty sure Partition2 and Partition3 were created by the installer.
As for Partition1 (EFI), it depends on what you selected during install; there is an option to format that partition or leave it as is. You can just leave it, there is zero sensible information about you on the EFI partition.
Or just erase it, and it will be created again, when someone install as new OS.
Depends on what you want…
Okay, I deleted all of the partitions (leaving Partition 1 kept the boot devices) and it worked, thank you for your time and patience.
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If it did not come with an OS then a simple delete of all existing partitions will wipe out the existing OS install and you can return it with nothing installed.
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Use DBAN on all visible storage devices. Burn a DBAN Cd or usb stick, and boot to that. Then select all avaialble storage drives. and tell it to run.
DBAN will actually securely erase all data on disk, instead of merely deleting partitions which leaves all of your data in tact.
In the future, only install to encrypted partitions, to reduce the need to wipe disks.
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I thought I had seen one large encrypted LVM volume but it’s actually not, good catch.
The Ultimate Boot CD is also a good choice. It is open source, and has a utility that even wipes disks in an RAID array.