Re-partitioning problems with /dev/sda1

[debbie]

Hi I am trying to get back to WIndows 7 having given LInux MInt my best shot. I may return someday, who knows. But the whole process of reinstalling WIndows is turning out to be much more involved that just putting in the setup disc. Windows wouldn't let me get further than setting up the partitions because LInux uses ext4 - not NTFS.
i turned to gparted for help and found two partitions on my hard drive;

/dev/sda1 which is boot and mounted
/dev/sda2 which is NOT mounted.

I cannot unmount /dev/sda1 however I try. I get the message that it cannot be unmounted from mount point / as most likely other partitions are mounted on this mount point. I will have to umount it manually. As for the bit about other partitions being mounted on / the only other partition I have is /dev/sda2 and as I said above it isn't mounted because I wanted to format this to NTFS but it is only 3GB or so in size which WIndows tells me is not big enought to install their software.

I have tried this manual unmount command in the terminal, "sudo umount -t ext? /dev/sda?" but the result I get is this:

debbie@debbie-GT5042B ~ $ sudo umount -t ext? /dev/sda?
[sudo] password for debbie:
umount: /: device is busy.
(In some cases useful info about processes that use
the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1))
umount: /dev/sda2: not mounted

I have tried even to enlarge the size of the partition /dev/sda2 in gparted in the following steps

highlight the partition /dev/sda2
click on Partition in Toolbar menu
click on Resize.

I am at a loss now what to do. Is there any way I can reduce the size of /dev/sda1 partition so that I can increase the size of /dev/sda2 partiton, which I can the format in NTFS. This is all I want to do, to be able to reinstall WIndows again.

[DataMan]

Put you LiveCD/DVD in for Mint and re-boot. Run GParted from there. You will be able to do all partition options.

-DataMan

[Pierre]

use Gparted - on the live_cd - to erase all of the partition,
then - with no existing partitions - re_boot with the windows DvD.

But:- before even doing that:-
what issues were you having with Mint ( & which version ? )

[debbie]

The first thing I see when I boot with the gparted live cd is a black a white screen with numbers 1 and 2, then it says 'select cd-rom boot type'

What does this mean?

[debbie]

Thanks for your advice, I am now in Windows having used the gparted live cd. Only this way was I able to erase the partitions.

I left LInux Mint with a few misgivings because I have been having trouble getting my printer to work and other issues I have been having with it. That's not to say I won't return, or even use Ubuntu which I've also had a go with. And now that I have the gparted live cd in my library, I won't have any trouble changing around. And starting the new OS this way, on a formatted hard drive meant the cleanest install of all!

Regards,Debbie