I really need help, i'll give as much info as a cana while ago i installed red hat 9 but i never really got into it and began to dislike the program. so i was runnning a dual boot with windows me (which is also crap) and linux on seperate hard drives. I'm upgraded to windows XP pro and decided that it was time to get rid of linux. I tried figuring out how to through linux but linux wasn't very helpful. so I used xp's computer management and formatted the linux partitions and reallocated them to windows xp. Apparently that is the wrong thing to do because now when i boot all i get is grub>. i've read that i need to use fdisk /mbr to get windows to boot again, but i have no idea how to get there. since xp doesn't have fdisk, plus i can't get into xp. Any help would be appreciated. i just want to get rid of linux once and for all. Thank you.

Can you still get into Linux? I think grub has an uninstall option or maybe you could zero the boot sector with dd. Or use Windows' disks as 'recovery disks' - I think diskpart or some such will take care of it. I'm amazed Windows' install doesn't just overwrite grub. Just do a clean Windows install. Sounds like you were trying to manipulate the partitions and didn't touch the boot sector. Or a DOS floppy should have fdisk on it - what happened to your ME? That should have it, since it's the last DOS OS. Lots of options.

And speaking of options, if you didn't like Red Hat, give another Linux distro a try if you'd like.

Good call on getting rid of it

you need a windows startup disk to use fdisk /mbr and you cant get it if you dont have any other win-doze computer. You could try installing xp again on whole hard drive (like digiot suggested). Quitting linux is easier than quitting windows..

Dear Ryan,

I am assuming that's your name from your nick. I will help you get your system back.

Sure would like to see you leave a Linux distro on to learn with. I installed RedHat in 1999 as a second OS, but gave up after a short time. Now I'm back learning again. In the meantime, I know enough about Windows and can help you get your system back. NP

Do you still have the Windows ME boot disk? If so, turn your computer off and stick it into the floppy drive. Turn the computer on, and when the screen says something like Starting Windows ME, you will have choices. (I only used ME for about 2 days at my job one time - it was so buggy I did a complete low level format of the hard drive and installed W2K.) With the W98SE startup disk the choices (should be the same with ME) are:
1. Start Windows ME Setup from CD-ROM.
2. Start computer with CD-ROM support.
3. Start computer without CD-ROM suport.

Enter a choice:

You will also have at the bottom of that screen:

F5=Safe mode Shift+F5=Command prompt Shift+F8=Step-by-step configuration

You should select Shift+F5 for a command prompt. The system will then return you an A prompt:
A:\>
You should then type fdisk /mbr
This will completely fix your master boot record and you will then be able to boot into Windows XP.

Should you have problems, return to this thread and we will help you further. If you no longer have a Windows ME boot disk, supply your email address and I will send you a file and instructions so that you can use it and make your own boot floppy.