MS W2k long gone but MBR still looking for NTLDR

sinczar · 09-23-2004, 05:21 PM

Its been two years since I deleted Windows 2000 on a dual boot, dual drive setup with Mandrake. Ive only run Mandrake since, but yesterday I deleted a small NTFS partition, on drive hda, and oops there went NTLDR. How do I edit/ delete the MBR to reflect the absence of any MS windows operating system, without damaging the partition table, then install lilo.
Thanks,
Rich D.

Tinkster · 09-23-2004, 05:30 PM

Hi, and welcome to LQ!

You could try booting linux via rescue/boot
CD ... how that's done kind of depends on your
distro, though.

Once linux is up and running, edit your lilo.conf
appropriately and run lilo.

Cheers,
Tink

wpyh · 09-24-2004, 04:59 AM

It searches for NTLDR because it's the MBR that Win2k made. Edit lilo.conf so that lilo will be installed in the MBR (which will overwrite the previous one).

Glas · 09-24-2004, 05:04 AM

You can always use a Win98 bootdisk and do an fdisk/mbr but that will reset your mbr back to a DOS standard mbr. I am not sure of any linux commands that can do it but then again I am a linux newbie.

JrLz · 09-24-2004, 08:42 AM

install lilo in MBR will do better

sinczar · 09-24-2004, 12:51 PM

Ive booted into rescue mode and looked at lilo.conf but dont see anything "MS like". Does anyone know the syntax that I need to remove. When I run the mandrake partition utility under the system configuration module both discs say MS-DOS boot only, not LILO so there must be something there.

Thanks all,

Rich D.

Tinkster · 09-24-2004, 04:36 PM

Of course we do, you just never asked

boot = /dev/hda

Cheers.
Tink

wpyh · 09-25-2004, 12:04 AM

Actually you should remove anything resembling boot=/dev/xxxx and replacing it with boot=/dev/hda