Hello,

I installed SuSe 9.1 and at first everything was working fine with a startup choice of win98 or Linux. No problem at this point.

Later on under win98 I ran partition magic to create a data partition and it had the effect of screwing up something in the partition table (i think). Anyway the net result was the mc would start in Grub, whatever that is.

I've since reformatted my disk, re-installed windows, re-installed SuSe but whatever happens it goes directy to Grub. In fact even after a disk format it still goes into Grub.

I've also noticed that after a SuSe install the disk properties seem to change in the Bios leaving me the job of doing an auto detect each time before re-formatting.

Still can't stop the computer going in to Grub though.

What is Grub ? How can I really clear my disk ?

I could and can just create a win98 system no problem but having seen suSe once I want it back but how ?

Any help much appreciated.

Welcome to Linux Questions! I hope you find the this forum and its patrons both friendly and helpful! Now, I think I've got your problem figured out.

GRUB is a bootloader, a tiny program that lets you choose an Operating System to load when you startup your computer. Other bootloaders are LILO, OSX, etc. If you boot Linux & Windows, or more than one flavor of Linux, chances are square that you use a boot loader.

Going by the information given' I'm assuming you installed Grub to your MBR. (A safe assumption.)

Grub is most likely in the MBR. The MBR is a tiny space reserved for boot loaders and the like, and thus, is unaffected by formats. This means that even if you kill everything on your hard disk, format it, install Linux, kill it and format again, Grub will still be in your MBR. Scary, huh? Fear not! If you can find a Win95 bootdisk (Anybody thats ever used Windows should have one somewhere.) You can boot from it and run the command "fdisk -mbr", or is it "fdisk /mbr"?. I forget. I think the Linux fdisk can do this too, but I've never tested it. If you run either of these, your MBR will be restored to the original, default MBR, letting you boot without Grub getting in the way.

I hope this helped. If you didn't catch a word of that (my bad grammar does this to people), I could make up a boot floppy that will fix this for you. Just ask, and ye shall receive.