I’ve just learned something last night…

Never overlook the problem and always think simple as there’s always exist a solution near you.

I was going to remove my Linux partition, ext3 type. I run PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8.0, try to delete the partition, and failed. It says that it doesn’t support this ext3 partition type… So I go to PowerQuest website and redirected to Symantec site (since PowerQuest already taken by Symantec in 2003). Browsing the website, I found out that PartitionMagic is now bundled with Norton AntiVirus 2005. But still version 8.0, so I guess this won’t solve the problem

Then I decided to look for another partition software. Do some googling, and ended up with Acronis PartitionExpert. It says that ext3 partition is supported. Great! So I downloaded the demo version, and install the program. “I finally able to remove this Linux partition“, that’s what I thought. But I was wrong :(( The demo version won’t do anything! It simply just a demo of how the program looks like. Oh well…

While I installed PartitionExpert, I remember about WindowsXP Disk Management. I opened it up (Start - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management) and click on Storage - Disk Management. “Hey, the Linux partition is in there!“, i saw several unknown partition (ext3 and Linux swap partition) on the disk list. Right click on the partition, choose Delete. It works!!! Damn it, I spend hours to do it using any partition manager software while the solution is lying there on WindowsXP! So this is what you get if you don’t look everything near you first before you look around outside.

And that’s what I learned last night. Another problem which has a simple solution rather than a complex one is the Petals of the Rose problem. Try it! Some people need a couple of days to solve it while others only take a second. Also, you might interested reading about what happened when Bill Gates was introduced to Petals Around the Rose in June 1977 :))