How to fix grub after removing linux partition

cantonboy · 11-19-2004, 01:32 PM

Before you guys yell at me "why not linux?", let me explain my situation first:

I have two PC's and both are set to dual boot mandrake 10 official/win xp. I have decided to erase the mandrake partition on my AMD 3000+ machine so that I can install more PC games (say hi to half life 2!) to it. If I want to use Mandrake, I can always go back to the slower P4 1.6G.

My question is: how do I fix grub (better yet, erase it) after Mandrake is erased? I know there are several possible solutions:

1. boot with mandrake cd 1 and fix MBR;
2. boot with win xp cd and fix MBR;
3. boot with win98 floppy and fix MBR.

I dont know which one really works and since I have too much data on my hd to back up, I need a CORRECT answer, not an educated guess. Can somebody help me please?

TIA...

abisko00 · 11-19-2004, 01:41 PM

1. don't know if this will work

2.+3.:from SuSE SDB (works also with Mandrake)

Quote:

Using Windows XP

In Windows XP, you can uninstall GRUB as follows:
Boot from the Windows XP CD and press the "R" key during the setup in order to start the Recovery Console. Select your Windows XP installation from the list and enter the administrator password. At the input prompt, enter the command "FIXMBR" and confirm the query with "y". The MBR will be rewritten and GRUB will be uninstalled. Press "exit" to reboot the computer.

Using a DOS or Windows 9x/ME Boot Floppy

In case you have DOS or Windows 9x/ME on your system, you can use fdisk for this purpose. Create a rescue disk in DOS or Windows 9x/ME, use it to boot the computer, and execute fdisk as follows:

fdisk /mbr

The MBR will be rewritten and GRUB will be uninstalled.

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2002/0...tall_grub.html

cantonboy · 11-19-2004, 02:03 PM

Wow that was fast. So it looks like options 2 and 3 actually work, although I have heard some horror stories about people getting their data lost forever.

Thanks a lot!

vectordrake · 11-19-2004, 06:09 PM

2 works
3 doesn't really, as it makes a win98 MBR, when you need NTLDR
Do exactly what abisko00 has quoted with your XP cd and you'll be back in business in minutes. If you're not boot back into the cd a go to Recovery Console again and type "fixboot" then "fixmbr". You'll be back in Win32 once again....

....and, hey, who's yelling? mandy can handle that slower computer better anyhow. LOL (couldn't resist)