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07-16-2004, 09:47 AM
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#1
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LQ Newbie
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 5
Rep:
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Umm lilo problem
So.. i deleted my linux partition through windows using partition magic. When i start partition magic again, it says the partition is gone... but i can still boot to linux and lilo still starts with windows and linux listed.... WTF MATE!?!
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07-16-2004, 09:57 AM
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#2
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Distribution: Slackware, LFS, Ubuntu, RedHat, Slamd64
Posts: 507
Rep:
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Lilo reads the master boot record (at least in the most common configuration). This wasn't affected by deleting the linux partition.
John
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07-16-2004, 08:04 PM
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#3
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Member
Registered: Apr 2004
Distribution: Slackware 10, Open BSD 3.6, Mac OS 10.3.7, Splack 10 beta
Posts: 393
Rep:
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you can reload the windows boot loader with a dos recovery floppy.
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07-17-2004, 02:58 AM
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#4
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LQ Newbie
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 5
Original Poster
Rep:
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but... the lilo.conf file was stored in the /etc directory of the linux partition... wouldn't it like not find the file?
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07-20-2004, 03:44 AM
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#5
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Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Distribution: Slackware, LFS, Ubuntu, RedHat, Slamd64
Posts: 507
Rep:
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I think lilo.conf is used when writing to the mbr (i.e. when you make some changes and run /sbin/lilo) but not during boot up.
John
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07-20-2004, 10:08 PM
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#6
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LQ Newbie
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 5
Original Poster
Rep:
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then is there any way to "uninstall" lilo and set the mbr back to just windows? BUT the thing that is still weird is that linux still boots even though i deleted the partition?!?
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07-20-2004, 10:52 PM
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#7
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Senior Member
Registered: Jan 2004
Location: Roughly 29.467N / 81.206W
Distribution: OpenBSD, Debian, FreeBSD
Posts: 1,450
Rep:
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You deleted the partition but the information is still there on the disk. Lilo knows where to find it by address. Just open a command prompt and type "fdisk /mbr" and the problem will go away. Then you can use it (the empty space) for whatever you want.
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07-21-2004, 02:48 AM
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#8
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LQ Newbie
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 5
Original Poster
Rep:
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first of all.... isn't fdisk a linux command? ... either way it doesn't work in a command prompt
and second of all.... linux is still obviously installed on my system SOMEwhere.. since the partition is deleted, i'm puzzled as to why it still works just as it did before i deleted it?
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07-21-2004, 04:56 AM
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#9
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Member
Registered: May 2004
Location: Germany, Munich
Distribution: SuSE Pro Releases 7.3, 9.0, CentOS 4.0, Kubuntu 6.0x
Posts: 103
Rep:
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Quote:
Originally posted by Nutty1084
first of all.... isn't fdisk a linux command? ... either way it doesn't work in a command prompt
and second of all.... linux is still obviously installed on my system SOMEwhere.. since the partition is deleted, i'm puzzled as to why it still works just as it did before i deleted it?
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Well, *deleting* a partition from Windows does not delete it really - it just modifies the partition table Windows uses. The data in that killed partition stills there and can be used. Firthermore LILO does not know anything of file systems and file locations, it uses direct disk addresses and maps to partitions. When you run lilo with the lilo.conf it just reads the configuration file and updates its image in the MBR on the disk, where it translates each understand information from lilo.conf into physical disk addresses. Thus killind the partition, but leaving the contained data there will change nothing in the way LILO boots your Linux.
To get rid of the Linux partitions (there could be one Swap partition in addition to the root one), you should reinstall the Windows boot loader and then repartition the free space and eventually format it with whatever file system you like to use. To reinstall the Window boot loader you'll nee to fix the MBR of your Windows disk
Depending on the Windows you use, you might need to use one or more of the following commands:
- fdisk /mbr - this is used for Windows prior version 2000, it will fix the MBR of your disk
- fixmbr - this is used for Win2k and WinXP to fix the MBR of your disk. You should run the Rescue console in order to be able to use this command.
- fixboot - this will replace the boot sector of a disk with clean standard copy. You should run the Rescue console in order to be able to use this command.
An yes, fdisk is also a DOS command, not only Linux one.
Kind regards,
sbogus
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