Getting "GRUB version 0.93................." when i restart my computer..
 

Hi to all the linux gurus :-),
well firstlly i started really liking linux recently from the past 2 months..Now I have got 1 desktop comp and 2 laptops and are all installed with linux :-).
I have the following OSs installed in my desktop....used to only have win98 on it..then i installed windows 2000 also...used to get a boot menu and i could select 2k or 98 from it. Now a month back i installed redhat 9 and the grub loader got installed. when Gurb loader starts i get the dos or linux option...if i select dos then i get the win2000 boot menu...with win2000 profesioanl and win98 options. This was how it used to be when everything was fine.


Now coming to the problem.......hwas perfectly fine until i deleted the the linux partition.....Now i get a terminal type screen with "grub>" prompt when ever i start the computer.
I actually searched this site and actuallly found this kind of problem happening to a guy. He was suggestd to create a startup disk in windows 98 and load it then do a fdisk /mbr...(if win98) and if win2000..do the recovery procedure and fixmbr...Now all of that is fine...i get it......NOw coming to my actual dilemma,,, i got both the damn OSs installed!!!!!. So can i do a fdisk /mbr with a 98 startup disk.!!!!!! If at all i did will i lose my win2000 partion info from the boot record...and will i never be able to access win2000????

Well now u might ask me why the hell cant i just use the fixmbr in win2000 instead!!!!???. Hmm...the catch here is that i should have bootable win2000 cdrom..which i dont....

Now..I cant try out the win2000 recovery method of fixmbr because that process needs a bootable win2000 cdrom...

So finally in short.....what do i do now...can i use win98 startup disk ...if i do will i lose win2000 part info..i really got imp info in my win2000 part....cant lose it.....


I actually went thru a OS chain loading procedure from grub manual..but was just scared i might f*** up things to much worse state....what do i do

finally in much simpler words I just want to remove the grub loader and get back to windows menu....do not get me wrong linux gurus....its not that i had enough of linux i really luv linux...i already got them in two of my laptops...only that i am short of space in my desktop..anywayz i would be really grateful for any help sought...thank u
cheers :-) :-)
C A
thnx

fdisk /mbr won't destroy the partition table, if you're really paranoid get a distro that runs from the CDROM, such as Knoppix, and backup your mbr/files.

It shouldn't matter which one you restore. Your boot.ini file on C drive should still contain all the relevant data. Actually you might want to restore which ever windows had the boot.ini file on it.... I'm getting REALLY creeped out giving windows advice on a linux forum, just so you know... This is what you get for deleteing Linux..... I wish you a lifetime of troubles from here on out with your desktop.... :D Heres what I would do... Restore which ever OS was on C drive. If it's 98, I hope that it uses the same mechanisms and boot.ini procedure that NT versions do.... Might want to follow up on that. Hopefully 98 handles dual-booting 2 windows' just like later versions.... Your boot.ini file is always on C drive to the best of my knowledge. It should still even contain all the same info. If so, then theoritically, you should only have to restore 98. I don't know tho. I answer linux forums and not windows forums so I'm just guessing. This is most assuredly a windows problem regardless of what caused it. This could have happened with just 98 and 2k installed... I would post on a MS forum and just say that your bootloader was just screwed up one day and see what advice they have to offer... Windows users are even more fanatical and stuck up than linux users, so if it was me, I wouldn't mention linux unless you want a condecending and self-righteous attitude thrown at you.. I say "thats what you get for going back to windows". They say "Thats what you get for using Linux". Funny, no?

Good luck tho. You can't screw up your MBR anymore than it already is. Go ahead and try it. Thats what I would do..... Restore 98 cause I know thats whats on your first partition. It will refuse to install on any other partition. Then once you hit your desktop, (are you a noob to windows too?, not sure), enable 'show hidden files and folders' in folder settings or folder views or something like that. Should be up in the toolbar of windows-explorer or maybe even in the control panel on 98... Then go to C drive in my computer and hopefully theres remenants of a boot.ini file there. If not, do a google hunt for one that has 2k and 98 involved and make your own, or ask for one on a MS forum... Hopefully the windows bootloader is versatile enough to not have to be appended before it will look for a boot.ini file....

Sorry for the long post. Good luck...

also, I forgot to mention.

www.bootdisk.com

has an extensive set of windows bootloader disks... If you really want a 2k floppy boot disk, get it there. It takes 4 floppies tho....

Jon

<edit>
If you REALLY, REALLY want to be able to get into 2k before anything else, then go ahead and try to restore it first. 98 should come up as another drive under my computer. However, if you restore 98 and the dual boot thing doesn't work, then I don't think 98 is capable of reading an NTFS drive. Atleast if you restore 2k sucessfully, you'll have access to both drives but just maybe able to only boot 2k..... O.k... I'm gone...
</edit>

Win98 doesn't have the same boot mechanism as winnt/2k/xp, there's no boot.ini which is used by nt os loader, the win98 bootsector only supports loading itself. What happens when you dual boot win98/2k is that during win2k installation, it automatically detects the presence of win98, then extracts the win98 bootsector into a file called bootsect.dos, adds it to boot.ini and replaces the bootsector with nt os loader. That's why people keep on saying that you need to install win2k/xp after win9x, if you install win98 after win2k/xp the nt os loader gets overwritten.

Note that win9x/nt os loader never gets installed in the mbr, what's in there is a standard mbr that gives control to the active partition(or bootable partition) when you boot, and it can be restored using "fdisk /mbr" which I'd imagine is pretty much the same as doing "fixmbr" in the recovery console.

On a side note if you want to use the GRUB prompt to chainload your current nt os loader so that you can get into Windows and do backups/watever, try

And there you have it! ;) A plethora of information on the windows bootloader... Take what you will from it. I deduced trying to mess with 98 won't get you very far. Atleast not with 2k.... I always thought that that was the case with there not being alot of specific files in your MBR. Never cared enough to research it more I guess.... I only research when things go wrong and the nt bootloader was always really stable and trouble free for me....

heeeey guys thanx a lot everything is back in order now....by the way thanx a lot Demobane ur suggestion just worked like marvel...and thanx for the actual explanation in ur second posting...that actually boosted my confidence of moving forward. I was already going to a state of confusion by reading jong357's posts(no hard feelings jong)....hey jong thanx for ur feed too...i really liked the way u dealt with matter...i know its a windows prob sorry for that. I could understand from ur posts that u r really a ardent lover of linux and a hater of windows.....anyway thanx a lot guys......thanx Demonbane, u simply made it too simple....:-)