Effect on factory setting after installing linux

Question

I have a basic question in my mind about the dual operating systems. I bought a new lenovo laptop G450 which is shipped with Windows 7. Now I want to install Ubuntu Linux as a second operating system in a different partition.

My question here is, after a while at some point in future if I want to get rid of linux an go back to original factory settings, would I get any problem because of custom partition and MBR?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It completely depends on how well the reloader (?) was designed. Does it just get, say the second partition, reformat and reload, or second last partition. Does it get the partition by GUID, does it read a code from the beginning of the hard drive... The only way you'll be sure is to ghost the disk, install Ubuntu, and try and restore. If it works, then hooray, you can install Ubuntu without worrying about it. If it doesn't, then restore from the image you created earlier.

Answer 2

Windows 7 doesn't know anything about the Linux partition, so you should will be fine. If you uninstall Linux and GRUB, the Windows boot loader will take over.

Now, deleting Linux will have unused space on your harddrive -- space that Windows probably won't know how to handle right away (since it don't be configured as NTFS). A utility such as GParted will help you reclaim that space.