Baslinux mailing list

[Ian Scott <mriscott AT yahoo.co.uk>]

> To boot into DOS you first need to undo what Lindows dis.
> How would one uninstall a boot manager, fdisk /mbr?  
> 
> We used this once to remove some virus detection software.
> 
> I did a search on 'remove boot manager' and there was a different
> procedure if linux was still installed, something like lilo -u /dev/hda

These are two different ways of 'undoing'.

DOS fdisk /mbr installs DOS's own boot manager (which will run DOS/windows 
from your C drive).  This is not so much undoing as trampling on your boot 
sector.

lilo -u /dev/hda (from within linux) should be a real undo.  When lilo 
installs
its boot manager, it backs up what was there before, so you can restore it 
with
lilo -u. This ought to be better, as it will restore whatever you had before,
which may not be a straight forward DOS boot manager (For example, if you were
running NT or XP it might well be a different manager).  However, if there is
a problem with the backup, or if lilo has been run twice (thus overwriting the
original backup with a backup of the first run of lilo) this may not give what
you want.

Ian