topic Re: Removing Linux from MBR in Operating System - Linux

Removing Linux from MBR

Khalid A. Al-Tayaran — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:26:00 GMT

Hi all,

We have a computer running Win 2000. We installed Mandrake linux 7.1 GPL on the same machine. Of course at startup we choose which OS to run. But if we decide to move Linux to a different machine, how will we fix the MBR area on the multiboot system (removing Linux)?

I know how to remove the ext3 partition with partition magic......

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Claudio Cilloni — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:35:38 GMT

in win98 you can run 'fdisk /mbr' from a dos shell... I hope that in win2000 is the same...

regards
Claudio

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Francisco J. Soler — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:37:37 GMT

Hi,
In the ms-dos command prompt type:
fdisk /mbr

if you install the boot loader into mbr of course.

Frank.

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Khalid A. Al-Tayaran — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:01:55 GMT

Hi,

thanks guys..

In cmd You can get a DOS command line. But there is no fdisk in Windows 2000.

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Claudio Cilloni — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:12:25 GMT

you can get an old MSDOS boot floppy containing fdisk.exe (or .com? I don't remember :-), boot your machine from it and run fdisk /mbr.

... excuse me but I haven't a better solution :-(

hi
Claudio

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Jarle Bjorgeengen — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:22:52 GMT

Hi ,

I think you can run
fixmbr and/or fixboot from the win2k install CD. (Boot a emergencye shell)

Rgds Jarle

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Francisco J. Soler — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 18:36:31 GMT

You can delete MBR inside linux with the following command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

but you have another problem, you must delete the linux partitions too because, win2000 can not access to linux partitions.

You can do it after deleting MBR then boot with linux instalation cd and deleting linux partitions or better converting linux partitions into windows partitions at the begining of instalation, then reboot the computer (without installing linux).

Frank.

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Caesar_3 — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 18:49:34 GMT

Hello!

This question is more like for W2K forum.
Copy from old windows fdisk and run fdisk /mbr
You also have disk manager in W2K check
if you have option to set MBR there.

Caesar

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Stuart Browne — Mon, 16 Jun 2003 23:28:54 GMT

This is a windows question, and is suprisingly answered in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (scary!).

But simply put, what the others have said is correct.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;171611

It truely is entertaining to read through some of those MS KB articles regarding unix/linux ;P

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Manuel Wolfshant — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 06:22:04 GMT

just run lilo -u from linux. -u stands for "uninstall" and will restore the MBR to the state previous to installing lilo.

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Jerome Henry — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 06:28:04 GMT

Best is fixmbr command. lilo -u is also a great solution, but only if you did'nt modify your boot since linux install... and of course doesn't work with grub.
fixboot shouldn't be needed, as to be fixed is just your mbr, you do not need to re-set boot files to your C: (but doing so won't hurt !)

Let us know !... :]

J

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Claudio Cilloni — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 06:54:29 GMT

... or you can re-install win2000... it will overwrite the MBR as if it was the only OS in that machine :-P (once this behaviour made me say #$@^!@$#!!!!)

0 points for me :-)

greetings
Claudio

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Jerome Henry — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 06:58:49 GMT

Hi hi hi !

Sounds a good solution, you can even remove your Linux partition with that system... only trouble is risk of data loss...

(who cares about data : assign 0 to this too, most important is the system you pay for, data don't matter that much...)

:]]

J

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Balaji N — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 08:17:24 GMT

hi
i have used lilo -u successfully many times to remove LILO.

another option is fdisk /mbr from a win98 or below bootable disk.
-balaji

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Khalid A. Al-Tayaran — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 09:51:49 GMT

Hi,
Thanks guys, I got your point...

Re: Removing Linux from MBR

Craig Gilmore — Wed, 18 Jun 2003 16:12:37 GMT

I'm surprised -and pleased- that with the mention of partition magic in the original question, that no mention was made of Boot Magic. I believe that this utility still ships on the Partition Magic disk.

Yes, you can also use the suggestions mentioned here.

Regards,

CG