VanLUG Email Archive
David & Masako Bellwood (blwd@home.com)
Thu, 28 Jan 1999 20:10:41 -0800
Hi Mike, Ryan (& all!)
Many thanks for your suggestions. Yes, I had tried FDISK /MBR (from a
DOS boot floppy, as recommended by various sources). I finally succeeded
in installing Linux so that it didn't overwrite my existing partitions,
but I'm not sure that I haven't simply bypassed the problem.
Incidentally, (off topic, I suppose), there is a funny bug in OS/2's
FDISK which makes it impossible ever to re-install OS/2 on a drive if
you used someone else's utility (such as Partition Magic) to wipe out
its partitions. The screen shows an almost empty hard drive with
misaligned information and a warning about the partition table being
corrupt. But who cares?? Not too many, I think.
Thanks again.
David Bellwood
Mike Montour wrote:
>
> 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 - 20:11:14 PST