VanLUG Email Archive
Mike Montour (mmontour@iname.com)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 11:50:58 -0800 (PST)
On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, David & Masako Bellwood wrote:
> I have exactly the same problem. I have deleted all partitions,
> recreated them and re-deleted using DOS & OS/2 FDISK, Partition Magic
> under OS/2 and WIN95, not to mention Norton Disk Doctor. I have a nasty
> feeling I'm going to have to re-install DOS 6.22 and have a go at
> editing the MBR in hex with Norton's Disk Tools (NU 8.0), but I am not
> exactly delighted at the idea. I, too, wait to see if someone can wave a
> magic wand for us. I think I did something stupid with LILO.
>
> Help!
As Ryan mentioned, the (undocumented, I think) DOS command "fdisk /MBR"
will create a valid MBR that will allow you to boot Windows. Even if
you delete and re-create all partitions then re-install Windows, it still
may not boot unless you "fdisk /MBR" it (I consider this a bug in the
Windows installation sequence, and it caused me a lot of trouble a
couple of years ago).
Another way to clean your hard drive is to use a "zero-fill" utility
from the drive manufacturer (as someone suggested) or from Linux,
use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX" where X is a,b,c,d
depending on which drive you want to erase. USE WITH CAUTION since
this will erase ALL your data on that drive. (dd has lots of other
options, and it can be used to erase just one sector of your hard
drive).
To get the dual-booting working again, you need to boot Linux from
a floppy, verify or correct your /etc/lilo.conf, then re-run lilo.
If there's a need (and not a good solution already somewhere on the
Net), I could put together a bootable utility disk to do this sort
of repair. Any interest?
-Mike <mmontour@iname.com>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu 28 Jan 1999 - 11:51:13 PST