Return to Windows

[David Scruggs]

I have RED HAT 6.1 loaded on a pivilion. I need to reload this particular machine back to windows. How do I get rid of LILO and the linux partititions. I don't have a boot disk, but a system reload. With out reloading LILO, it never sees the dos partition.

[Andre Miller]

If I'm not mistaken the HP Pavilion comes with a bootable CD that can restore the system. This will replace the installed Redhat 6.1 with the shipped Windows.

If this does not get rid of lilo you can use a dos bootable disk with fdisk.exe and type "fdisk /mbr" to recreate the master boot record on your harddisk and erase lilo. I know you mentioned you do not have a dos boot disk, so this might not be an option.

[kjell mesch]

Removing linux partition is easy to do with
fdisk but use the one in linux, the one in windows is not good at dealing with linux.
To be on the safe side boot linux of a disk when you remove the partitions. You don't have to but...

lilo is in MBR and is overwritten by Windows during installation.

BTW on an dual boot system I allways install lilo on the linux root partition not MBR, I guess the same could be done on any system.

/kjell

[Vernon Brown]

My Pavilion restore disk wouldn't remove LILO from the Master Boot Record (MBR) so you may have to get a DOS boot disk with fdisk on it. The only way I could get my Windows partition (half of my 20 gig HD) to boot was to put a DOS boot disk in the A: drive, boot up on it, and run fdisk /mbr. Windows then booted normally. Then I reinstalled LINUX and choose "Skip" when promped to do the LILO install. I choose to make a LINUX boot disk when prompted, and I boot into LINUX using that. Works fine for me.

[Bolek Mynarski]

I presume that you still have your RedHat installation diskette. Start it up, let it go through initial checkings and then, select custom. You will have an option of running diskdruid. Use it to remove linux partitions and make sure you save the changes. After that, reboot your machine. To get rid off LILO, insert your DOS boot diskette and run fdisk /mbr. After that, use whatever you do to re-install Windows.

[moliere F]

Actually the easiest way to get lilo to
release the MBR control back to any previously installed OS is to just to a
lilo -U of course you must be root to execute the command. Sometimes, fdisk /mbr just doesn't work, but the lilo -U always does.

Moliere

[Bolek Mynarski]

Hi Moliere,

Well, it seems like we have two different opinions and mine is that LILO -U actually never workded for me. However, fdisk /mbr worked every single time... :-)

[Kevin Wright]

at the LILO prompt, enter a ? and then enter the os you wish to enter.