remove GRUB from windows partition boot record
 

Hi! I was having problems dual booting my SuSE system and Windows XP, I could only boot into linux by using the SuSE install disc, so I tampered with GRUB and messed up bigtime.

When ever I let the system try to boot from the hdd I just got a message "GRUB" and my pc froze. This happened when GRUB was installed into the MBR of my hdd. When I removed GRUB with "fdist /mbr" and set my windows partition to be the primary one I could get into Windows XP.

The tampering I did was tell GRUB to install itself into the boot record of my windows xp partition (instead of into the MBR). Now windows xp can't boot, it just freezes. I can get into linux with the SuSE cd (I go to Manual Install->Start installed system and then I pick the suse partition) like before but now I can't get into windows xp. I am 90% sure that I could fix this by starting the windows xp repair console and running the Fixboot command. This would remove GRUB from the windows xp partition's boot sector. But, I can't boot from my windows xp cd. It freezes, just like GRUB does, after the "Detecting your hardware..." prompt. Infact, I can only boot from linux cd-s and from a DOS boot disk I made. Any boot disc related to windows just freezes (win 98,Me,XP).

Please help.

Hi

there are posts at this linux site on how to use windows xp cd but can you be explicit as to why that cd fails.

1) you appear to be saying your linux cd can boot so I assume you know how to change your bios boot order to cd before hd?
2) so what kind of message do you get to boot to xp cd?
3) you may want to have a look at a floppy that boots that enables the cdrom called smartbootmanager? if you have a hardware issue

so more info plse

MBR Problem ...
 

Dear Krun,

I guess you mean fdisk (not fdit) from Lnux you booted from CD?

Thanking you.
Best regards, RAKESH

Well Dear Krun ,

You are very right in that you could fix this problem by going into the windows recovery console and then typing fixboot but as you have mentioned that you are not able to boot your system using the bootable CD also. I had faced a similar prblem in RHEL and then i found out that i have no space on the disk left for the windows setup to use temporarily - giving the setup process a chock! my suggested solution is that you boot using your SuSe install disk. then use fdisk or similar disk partitioning tool to delete a non significant partition and make a new partition of the type vfat ( or w95 FAT32 ). just create a file system on that partition using mkfs -t vfat /dev/hda(partition #), now just cleanly shutdown your system and this time try to boot using windowss xp CD . In my case it worked , may be it will work for you !


ks - dli