Don't have acces to remove files! plz help asap.

[Godfather]

hi guys
my bro has windows xp installed on his pc and now something is broken he can't start anymore so i was going to reinstall his windows by removing the windows folder and the program files folder, but the problem is its on NTFS and now i booted his pc with the Knoppix 3.4 live cd and i wanted to remove those folders with it but it says canno't remove, i don't have acces to remove these folders. is there anyway i can remove these 2 folders?
can someone plz in short explain me step by step how to, by telling me which commands to enter? i know it has something to do with super user and root but i couldn't find any solution.
plz don't point me on other threads to read, i read almost all of them and it did help a litle but i didn't find my answer.
thank you in advance and if someone can plz answer me asap.
btw what is the command to remove files and folders from console?
thanks again :D

[OErjan]

the trouble is not that you are not root. it is that ntfs is read only for linux. you could use captiventfs and try that way...
if you do the comand to delete is:

rm -rfi /search/path/to/directory
if you want to risk things remove the i from line above and you will not be asked if you would delete each file/dir... you might have to type a few hundred y's otherwise.

[j.drake]

hi guys
my bro has windows xp installed on his pc and now something is broken he can't start anymore so i was going to reinstall his windows by removing the windows folder and the program files folder, but the problem is its on NTFS and now i booted his pc with the Knoppix 3.4 live cd and i wanted to remove those folders with it but it says canno't remove, i don't have acces to remove these folders. is there anyway i can remove these 2 folders?
can someone plz in short explain me step by step how to, by telling me which commands to enter? i know it has something to do with super user and root but i couldn't find any solution.
plz don't point me on other threads to read, i read almost all of them and it did help a litle but i didn't find my answer.
thank you in advance and if someone can plz answer me asap.
btw what is the command to remove files and folders from console?
thanks again :D

Please clarify, are you REMOVING or BACKING UP? If you are removing, I'm wondering if you could jsut simply reformat the hd. First, make the disk writable. Right-click the disk ->properties -> (third tab) uncheck "read only" ->OK _(right-click again) ->unmount . Then, open the console,

cd /mnt/hda1 (or where ever it is - I'm assuming hda1)
su
mkfs -t vfat /dev/hda1 [NOTE - I'm going from memory - check "man mkfs" for correct syntax - essentially, you're reformatting as FAT32]

If that reformats the drive as FAT32, then Win reinstallation should ask if you want to convert back to NTFS, or you can convert to NTFS later (WinXP has a utility for that). Note, if the hd is beyond a certain size threshold (32GB, IIRC), you cannot create a single FAT32 partition larger than that limit, so you'll have to partition using QtParted or cfdisk as root.

Once again, I'm going from memory, so either double-check me, or wait for someone else to.

Alternatively - get an old dos disk and format from DOS, using fdisk and format commands.