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Well right now i have mdk9.1 and winxp(home) dual booting using LILO. Now i want to install a debian only system. How would i remove the bootloader which is by the way located in the MBR(memory boot ram).
btw if anyone has a good install guide for debian besides the one on the debian website i would really appreciate it. oh and any comments/suggestions for a newb like me.
To remove the boot loader follow these instructions carefully.
First make sure you have a windows xp boot disk or the recovery console installed.
Second boot into the xp recovery console and pick the xp drive you want to perform the recovery operation on.
Third, type help to see a list of commands just so you can get a feel of what your working with and what the recovery console can do.
The command is.............. bootcfg.
Now once you type bootcfg youll get a list of available options to pass with bootcfg.
I usually pick bootcfg /rebuild or bootcfg /default. Either one of those will work. and I also would recommend the fixmbr command just to make sure the master boot record is fixed to xp and not the mandrake or linux bootloader.
Ive done this at least 7 times or so because I always would install linux on a box and then delete the partition but the bootloader would still be there.
Now to avoid that I just boot linux from a floppy disk instead of using the grub or linux bootloader. But this will work what I just posted above, as long as your doing it from the recovery console.
You can also load up into dos and type fdisk /mbr.
hmm...thanx for the tips fellas.
Hey I was wondering..............is there a way to boot into dos with xp? I know you can do it with any other windows o.s. but Ive always been told that you cant do it in xp. :huh: It would make a few things a lot easier for me if I could.Quote:
Originally posted by Xilo@29 June 2003 - 22:21
You can also load up into dos and type fdisk /mbr.
Well you can't normally but there is a way you can. Stick in your XP disc (it either has to be bootable or you need the 6 floppy disk thing). Then there should be some option for manually recovering and it will take you to a dos prompt. Or you can stick in a win 98 disc and do it from there.
omg LILO is annoying. I remember having to get rid of that also.. Now i just use Powerquest Bootmagic on a tiny 50mb Fat32 partion. I can edit the program settings in any of my operating systems :D :D
I like grub. You can have nice purty, custom boot up screens :D