formatting hd using RH

axon · 03-17-2004, 03:53 PM

is there a way to clear EVERYTHING with redhat, including the mbr? if so, how do I do it?

I'm trying to get rid of grub as I can't load XP...unfortunately fdisk /mbr doesn't want to work after I boot with a win98se cd

?? who knows what the hell is happening.

any ideas?

thanks

lfur · 03-17-2004, 03:55 PM

Try dd

man dd

axon · 03-17-2004, 03:59 PM

>>Try dd

sorry, but I am still a linux n00b...could you elaborate on that a little bit more. A ran the --help and man pages for the command but couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

lfur · 03-17-2004, 04:14 PM

Here is a very good explanation:

http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/n...00000000000000

it is only a part of thr Rute project:

http://rute.sourceforge.net/

axon · 03-17-2004, 04:16 PM

ok I think I get it: will this command do the trick?

Code:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1

axon · 03-17-2004, 04:45 PM

well I used that command from above....and it looked like it did clear the mbr, as GRUB no longer showed up. I reinstalled windows and thought everything is going well....I rebooted and again the same thing but with out the GRUB> prompt....just a blinking underscore. any ideas....btw, I'm using knoppix now

lfur · 03-18-2004, 09:05 AM

what about simply:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda