Hi,

I installed Mandrake 9.2 about a month ago. Today, I decided to do a reinstall of my computer using the backup disc with my laptop. After reinstalling, the dual boot screen that used to show up so I could choose between linux and windows is still showing up. I'm not sure how it could do this since I chose to rewrite all partitions during the reinstall.

How do I get rid of this screen and have it go directly to windows?

Boot with win2k/xp cd and do "fixmbr" in recovery console
or "fdisk /mbr" using a win98/dos bootdisk.

Depends on what operating system you are reinstalling.

If you are reinstalling Windows XP or 2000 you can overwrite the MBR (master boot record) of your hardrive with the default windows boot loader. Use your windows cd and boot your computer with it in the cd drive. At the next screen you press r to enter the recovery console (this is a simple command line interface). After you start the repair console it will ask you which installation of windows you would like to edit, It may read something like this:

Microsoft Windows(R) Recovery Console

The Recovery Console provides system repair and recovery functionality.
Type EXIT to quit the Recovery Console and restart the computer.

1: C:\WINDOWS

Which Windows Installation would you like to log onto
(To cancel, press ENTER)?

Press the number of the installation of windows you want to edit (in this case 1). After you have successfully logged into that installation you can simply type fixmbr this should rewrite windows boot loader to your MBR.

Good luck and remember to post back if you have any other pieces of advice for others who may be doing the same thing.

The boot screen is LILO(Linux Loader) or GRUB(Grand Unified Boot loader) and it is in your MBR (Master Boot Record).

For lilo, you can run 'lilo -U' to get rid of it from linux side, or something like 'fdisk /MBR' did it on the dark side (don't know if there is such a command and parameter nowadays).
Also in some recovery console (in the other system) there should be some commands like fixmbr and fixboot

Well, the only problem is that my computer didn't come with the actual windows home edition setup cd, just the factory reinstall dvd.

I've tried looking through it to see if it will let me start the recovery console but can't find anything about it. So, unless there's another way to run recovery console (why wasn't that already installed, Bill Gates?!?) then I'll have to try and uninstall the bootloader from the Linux side, right?

A little more info on my situation...

I tried doing the lilo -u but, after doing so and restarting, the bootloader screen was still there but I could no longer boot into Linux. It would just hang during the boot. I think I know why that happened. When I tried to reinstall windows over all the partitions, I lost my MBR record that lilo kept a copy of...so, when I installed Linux again, the MBR record it kept was just another lilo bootloader (at least that's what I think happened).

Anyway, realizing that my MBR was gone, I finally found a way to install Recovery Console without the setup disc.

That's where I am now. I've run 'fixmbr' and it worked. Now, though, when I boot there is a windows boot screen that gives me the option to boot regular windows or the recovery console. I just wanted it to load regular windows by default.

I'm sure there's an easy way to fix that. If someone could let me know I'd be extremely grateful, as this horrid boot 101 I've gone through has been tedious.

Thanks for the help that's gotten me this far, though. I guess the good thing is that until today I didn't even know what an MBR was but now I have some clue!

IIRC, there is something like boot.ini in the windows partition. Modifying it should alter the bootmenu of the windows system.

ToniT is right, in the top most directory of your windows partition (probably C:\) there is a file named boot.ini, this file contains the various windows operating systems you have installed so that you can boot to your choice of them when you boot your computer. If you can boot into windows you can edit the file using a text editor, notepad for instance (if you can't boot windows ther's other ways around that too). A sample one from a windows XP professional looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


Now yours may look similar to this only it will have a line that refers to the recovery console along with a line that refers to your OS, to remove the recovery console from the boot menu simply erase the line that refers to it (although it may come in handy to have it in the future so maybe set the default windows OS to the one you want and the timeout to something low like 5 seconds)

I hope this doesn't mean your getting rid of linux on your computer all together, the two can certainly coexist on the same hard drive easy enough (you can even get windows boot loader to give you the option to let you boot linux if you were so inspired) - let us know how it goes, and post your solution so others can benefit from your experience.

Thanks, I set the timeout to zero and that worked fine.

Yes, for now I am taking Linux off. Don't worry, though, I plan to reinstall Linux at a later date. I will leave the recovery console there since it will certainly come in handy at a later date I'm sure. It was easier to get than I thought though and didn't need the setup cd, just had to run the winnt32.exe file in the \windows\I386\ folder with the /cmdcons option.

Again, thanks for helping