Need help uninstalling linux....

carrett · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 273

Hi, this is sort of a WinXP question, but I trust Linux tech support more

I have been using gentoo for about a year now and, though I support all the ideals of GNU and the free software community whole-heartedly, I don't think Linux is ready to be a desktop OS yet. I think in time it will prove that it is better than anything M$ puts out in any market, but for the time being...most i386 people use Windows XP.

My question: I have a WinXP install and a gentoo install. I have lilo on the MBR but I want the MBR to be the way it was before linux (i.e. just boots windows). How do I uninstall lilo? I tried lilo -u /dev/hda but then when I rebooted I got "Error loading operating system." I have no problem booting into Windows from lilo so nothing is wrong with the installation...what do I have to do to my MBR!?

Thanks and good luck GNU guys.
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Halcy0n · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 8:27 pm Post subject:

Boot onto the XP install disc and go into the recovery console. Select your XP installation and put in the admin password. Then type "fixmbr" at the prompt. That'll set it back up so that the Windows bootloader will take over. You can then format your linux drive if you want.
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carrett · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 273

Hmm, I tried that and still got "Error loading operating system" and I had to use the linux rescue cd to install lilo again! Is there another possible way?
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klarnox · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2004 9:12 pm Post subject:

In the past I have for some reason had to run fixmbr a couple of times before the windows boot loader actually worked when replacing lilo or grub.

carrett · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 273

ok, i ran fixmbr about six times and now i get:

NTLDR is missing
Press any key to reboot.

I also tried freedos' fdisk /mbr but that was no go...it gave me this error:

partition signature != 55AA

I might've copied that down wrong. Anyway, it didn't work. I'm running outta options! But I musn't lose my data, and I also must regain my linux-occupied disk space!
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F.Ultra · Apprentice Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 169 Location: Sweden

Why not simply keep lilo and use it to autoboot WinXP? I don't think that it hurts!

carrett · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2003 Posts: 273

Because lilo needs linux and I want the diskspace that my linux partition currently occupies. I think I put that in the original post

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toddles13 · n00b Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Jafaland NZ

Why not just back up everything that you want from both drives and then just reinstall.
Add NTFS support your kernel. Copy and burn onto cd all the files you need/want to keep then del the lot and start again.
Sort of cheating but it works.
I had similar problem but i just bought a bigger drive and moved my linux to that. Reinstalled Grub and dualboot.
Now my linux has a nice shiny new 80GB drive and a 40GB for windows.
Have since deleted a couple of the windows partitions and now have 100GB for linux and 20GB for Window (still play a few games on there halo, CS 1.6 etc that I havent got working in linux yet)
Another way is just get lilo to boot your windows and delete the entries for linux and delete the partitions (except boot which is small anyway) then add them under windows. Almost all space recovered and a working system.

F.Ultra · Apprentice Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 169 Location: Sweden

No, Lilo lives on the MBR alone. It is only Grub that lives in /boot aswell.

toddles13 · n00b Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Jafaland NZ

Sweet even better.