Chapter 39. Removing Red Hat Enterprise Linux from IBM System z

39.1. Running a Different Operating System on your z/VM Guest or LPAR

If you want to delete the existing operating system data, first, if any Linux disks contain sensitive data, ensure that you destroy the data according to your security policy. To proceed you can consider these options:

Overwrite the disks with a new installation.
Start a new installation and use the partitioning dialog (refer to Section 23.13, “Disk Partitioning Setup”) to format the partitions where Linux was installed. After the Write changes to disk dialog described in Section 23.16, “Write changes to disk”, exit the installer.
Make the DASD or SCSI disk where Linux was installed visible from another system, then delete the data. However, this might require special privileges. Ask your system administrator for advice. You can use Linux commands such as dasdfmt (DASD only), parted, mke2fs or dd. For more details about the commands, refer to the respective man pages.

39.1. Running a Different Operating System on your z/VM Guest or LPAR

If you want to boot from a DASD or SCSI disk different from where the currently installed system resides under a z/VM guest virtual machine or an LPAR, shut down the Red Hat Enterprise Linux installed and use the desired disk, where another Linux instance is installed, to boot from. This leaves the contents of the installed system unchanged.