Re: How to de-Grub?
On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 12:47, Stephen Cradock wrote:
> Then, as one does when playing with Linux, I went stark staring bonkers, and
> decide to try Gentoo - a friend told me it was much easier to install.
> Rather than make yet another partition, I wiped the Sarge partition and
> installed Gentoo there, from a CD. That went OK, but also failed to detect
> my ethernet card. So it's back to Windows to go online to find out what to
> do next - URGGGH - Grub failed, of course - I had wiped out menu.lst when I
> deleted Sarge. So I couldn't get into Windows, or online with Gentoo.....
>
> Now I want to remove Grub - it has gone and installed itself in my MBR, and
> I don't know how to get it out. Any help?
Well, your machine won't boot from the hard-drive unless the MBR holds
code that points to *some* bootloader *somewhere*. So you'll need one of
Grub, LILO or the Windows bootloader installed.
Doesn't the Gentoo install process complete, even if it can't find your
network card? As long as it installs a base system, it should install
Grub or LILO, and set up the appropriate config to allow you to boot
either Gentoo or Windows. Or is the Gentoo install really a
network-based install, without even a base OS on the install CD?
I presume that your Windows install disks are capable of rewriting the
MBR to point to the Windows bootloader on your Windows partition, by
selecting a "repair" option.
Another option is to reinstall a basic Sarge system.
I think it should be possible to use the Sarge disks as a "rescue" CD
(or download and burn a real "rescue" CD). You can then boot from the CD
to a basic linux OS, reformat a partition as ext2 or similar, and
install *just* grub on that partition. At that point, rebooting should
give you a grub menu with just one option: windows. But if you're going
to do that, you may as well reinstall the Windows bootloader.
Regards,
Simon
Reply to: