How to uninstall Fedora

At the Fedora Project, we strive to provide an operating system with the latest, best features that's usable by everyone. Our millions of users agree that we've got what it takes. Everyone from schoolchildren to housewives to students to scientists are using Fedora all over the world to compute with stability and security. And the work that the Fedora Project continues to do in hundreds of upstream communities has helped other distributions become popular too.

But Linux isn't everyone's cup of tea. Because we respect the freedom to choose, even if that choice is for something other than freedom itself, this page explains how to uninstall Fedora from your system. How you proceed depends somewhat on how you set Linux up on your system.

These instructions should work equally well with most other Linux distributions.

These instructions may destroy data!
If you have data from Fedora that you want to keep, before your proceed you should back it up. Write your data to CD, DVD, or an external hard disk or other storage device. Make sure the external device is readable by a Windows computer.

1. Right-click the device icon on your desktop or in your graphical Computer browser.
2. Choose Properties.
3. Make sure the file system is msdos, fat, vfat, or ntfs.

My system only has Fedora, and I want to remove it and restore Windows.

This situation is easy to fix:

1. Back up your data as shown above, if necessary.
2. Shut down your Fedora system.
3. Boot from your Windows installation disc, which should have been provided with your system manufacturer. Sometimes this disc is called a "system restore disc." If you do not have such a disc, you may need to contact your system's manufacturer.
4. Follow the instructions for system restoration that were provided with your system. If you did not receive these in printed form, you may find them on the system restore disc. If not, visit the manufacturer's web site.

Some system restoration media, like a Windows installation disc, gives you choices for partitioning your hard disk. If you are presented with any choices for disk partitioning during the restoration or Windows installation process:

1. Remove all existing partitions.
2. Make a single partition taking up the full size of your hard disk
3. Install Windows on the new, single partition.

Often when you use a manufacturer's system restoration disc, the restoration process handles this procedure for you.

My system is a dual-boot with Windows XP and Linux, and I want to remove Linux and keep Windows.

Locate and check Windows installation disc
Before you begin this procedure, locate your Windows installation disc. Make sure it is readable and you can boot from it successfully before you undertake this procedure.

1. Back up your data as shown above, if necessary.
2. Shut down your Fedora system.
3. Restart your system. During the boot delay time, hit the Up and Down arrow keys to select your Windows operating system, and hit Enter to boot from it.
4. After Windows has started, from the Start menu, select Control Panel.
5. Select Performance and Maintenance.
6. Select Administrative Tools.
7. Select Computer Management.
8. In the left pane of the Computer Management window, under Storage, select Disk Management. On the right side, a graphical representation of your disk appears with bars representing each partition. The first partition is usually labeled NTFS and appears as your C: drive.
9. Remove other partitions belonging to your Linux system. Do not try to remove the C: drive partition. When you have finished, the rest of the disk is labeled as unallocated.
10. From the Start menu, choose Run....
11. Enter the command diskpart. A command window opens.
12. Enter list volume to show the volumes on your system. Each volume is numbered. Find the volume that represents your C: drive.
13. Enter select volume <N>, where <N> is the number of the volume for your C: drive.
14. Choose extend to extend the volume to fill the remainder of your disk where your Linux system previously existed. The diskpart utility confirms that the volume has been successfully extended.

My system is a dual-boot with Windows XP and Linux, and I want to destroy both and return to a Windows-only system.

This is essentially the same case as that of the Linux-only system above. Simply follow those instructions to remove all operating systems and start from scratch.

All data will be lost!
Note that if you follow the instructions for the Linux-only system above, you will lose all data on your system, including all your Windows programs and data. Only proceed to those steps if you understand and agree to that data loss.