booting linux from floppy ONLY
 

hi i'm pretty sure this is a pretty trivial question.

i'm running win98 most of the time and has recently decided to try linux instead. most of the time i would liek to run win98 so the bootloader (GRUB or LILO) is starting to become very irritating.

is there anyway i can remove the linux bootloader and make it start win98 like any ordinary win98 machine and only start linux when i put the linux bootdisk into the drive?

thanks in advance.

Make a windows boot floppy (make it from the Add/Remove programs app for some strange reason) and after booting, type

fdisk /mbr

thanks for the prompt reply.

i have done the fdisk /mbr and it worked. still not sure what it does although i've read the info on the MS website.

just for reference is there anyway to disable the bootloader from within linux itself? i've gone into the boot configuration in control center and it seems i have to select either grub or LILO. what can you do to make linux start from floppy only from within linux?

:confused: If you remove the bootloader, only windows loads from the hard drive.

Set your bios to boot from floppy first, then put the Linux boot floppy in drive and boot to boot Linux.

# How do I uninstall Linux completely and keep/use Windows only?
How to Remove Linux and Install Windows 2000
How to Remove Linux and Install Windows XP
You can remove lilo from the mbr with
/sbin/lilo -u
You can remove grub or lilo from the mbr by booting with a Windows 98 boot floppy (at the prompt, type fdisk /mbr), or by using the Windows XP Recovery Console or the Windows 2000 Recovery Console

An alternative solution is to put lilo (or probably grub, but I use lilo) on the floppy (/dev/fd0), and if you usually use windows, set it as your default. There is nothing sacred about having to have lilo on the harddrive. The line is "boot=/dev/fd0" for the floppy, and then "default=windows", assuming that is the label for the windows bootup. Since it only has to read the mbr of the floppy, bootup is just about as quick as with lilo on the harddrive. Then again, you could make windows the default even without a floppy, then unless you catch it before your timeout (set in 10ths of a second) the machine will boot to windows.

what if the reverse case! i have a hd, which i 've loaded two os. initially it was win98 and RH9 and GRUB was switching between these two oses. yesterday, i upgraded my win98 to winXP and it rewrite my MBR (previously i had GRUB on it). i have lost my GRUB. so, everytime, i need to boot to my linux, i have to insert the linux boot disk. troublesome!!!! now, i want back my GRUB. then, how to make it appear during the booting time.