Removing GNU GRUB from mbr

S

Silent Assasin

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 1, 2004
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Over the summer I was expirimenting with Ubuntu and decided to dual boot my sigged system with Ubuntu and Windows. Recently, I've noticed that my master hardrive with Windows XP installed is starting to fail, so over the past week, I've been backing everything up onto dvd's.

So now I want to reformat my 200gb drive currently with Ubuntu installed on it. This is so that I still have my current master drive avaliable in case I realize I forgot some needed data. But anyways, if I plug in just one hard drive to reformat, I can't boot with solely that drive. GRUB seeks for both drives and then won'ts let me boot. I did some searching and there is command that allows me to change the mbr in windows with a command called FDISK /MBR. This will replace the master boot record so that it solely boots to windows from the master drive. I could care less if it was looking for Ubuntu on the other drive because I will be writing zeros to it after I can get my drive to boot solely to Windows. Anyways, does anyone know how I go about running FDISK to rewrie the master boot record?
 
insert your windows xp cd, start the OS install, choose recovery console. take all the default options until it dumps you to a command promt. issue the command:

fixmbr

reboot, rinse, enjoy.
 
Well if you have an XP CD I believe you can boot from it, go to the recovery console and then type "fixmbr" without quotes.

That should do the trick.
 
Boot up to a windows xp install disk, then go into the recovery console and type in.......

fixmbr


That is all you have to do.

edit: Ooops beat me to it...
 
Actually, to remove GRUB and keep Windows booting properly, this is a two step process:

fixmbr (then press Enter to execute the command)

wipes the MBR of that crappy GRUB code and restores a factory fresh copy ready to roll. Then, and most importantly for Windows, comes:

fixboot (then press Enter to execute the command)

fixes boot.ini with the proper pointers. If you just do the fixmbr command typically you'll be left looking at the "NTLDR is missing" error and stuck, hence the reason it's two commands: fixmbr first followed by fixboot immediately after that then exit to leave Recovery Console and reboot.

Hope this helps...
 
wipes the MBR of that crappy GRUB code and restores a factory fresh copy ready to roll. Then, and most importantly for Windows, comes:
Click to expand...

sigh... :( :( :( :(
 
bbz_Ghost said:
Actually, to remove GRUB and keep Windows booting properly, this is a two step process:
Click to expand...

Fixboot isn't necessarily necessary, but probably a good idea anyway.

And for once I agree with Duby, the connotations were unnecessary. GRUB is a good bootmanager.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
wipes the MBR of that crappy GRUB code and restores a factory fresh copy ready to roll. Then, and most importantly for Windows, comes:
Click to expand...

Completely uncalled for.

*Does not go into which boot is better or OS, let's just leave it at that*
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
Fixboot isn't necessarily necessary, but probably a good idea anyway.

And for once I agree with Duby, the connotations were unnecessary. GRUB is a good bootmanager.
Click to expand...


Grub offers a hell of a lot more functionality then MS's boot loader does, so I just don't see how anybody could call it crappy. It is one of the most functional boot loaders in existence.
 
Sweet, thanks guys!

That's exactly what I was looking for. Now it's time to begin the endless task of reformatting and getting everything back to normal. Sigh.... Nothing is just ever the same after a reformat.
 
I would post to defend my position about GRUB based on the thousands of instances where I've had to help people either remove it outright or figure out/teach them how to use it properly on dual/multiboot installations over the years, but I won't. I speak from experience and offered my personal opinion about GRUB with a few words, I knew what to expect when I did so and accept what came from it.

The sheer fact that the OP was having issues with GRUB and asked for help only makes my opinion that much more solid - it works, but it's certainly not user friendly, hence my "crappy" connotation.

'Nuff typed.
 
Good enough man.

Everybody has had differing experience. Nothing wrong with your view.

Your right that Grub isnt exactly user friendly. It took a couple tries before I had it figured out.
 
Just a couple? Damn, now I'm impressed... took me days of reading (dare I say it twice in the same thread) crappy man pages and help files, then found someone that had the same experience as me, and you, and countless others, and wrote a nice FAQ for it with every single damned thing possible.

Only problem now is I can't find that FAQ link anywhere and it's pissin' me right off... if I do I'll tack it onto this thread. Most definitely helped me so I could help others... :)
 
It's actually pretty simple once you figure out the concept. It's literally just like any other command line. You just have to know what commands do what, and grub.conf is noth more then a sort of batch script. Any command you put in there will be executed on startup.

The only hard part is figuring out what commands are available, and what affect they will have on the system. The error message handler does suck quite a bit though. My personal opinion is that an error message to tell you what went wrong, and not just some number. So determining what the error number is can be quite a task as well.
 
Well, you know this and that, and I know this and that, but the OP didn't know this or that, hence the dilemma. :D

But a nice way to think about it...
 
A bit OT but personnally, I need to find out how to force a default selection to windows in the GRUB on my gf laptop since she want to always boot to Windows without having to select the right OS... I'm a noob in this area.
 
Xilikon said:
A bit OT but personnally, I need to find out how to force a default selection to windows in the GRUB on my gf laptop since she want to always boot to Windows without having to select the right OS... I'm a noob in this area.
Click to expand...

If you are using XP, you should be able to go into msconfig and remove any unnecessary boot orders. You can also you Dban to nuke the boot.ini.
 
Xilikon said:
A bit OT but personnally, I need to find out how to force a default selection to windows in the GRUB on my gf laptop since she want to always boot to Windows without having to select the right OS... I'm a noob in this area.
Click to expand...

add:
Code: 
default=n
where n is the entry in the list you wish to make default.
 
And whatever the time variable is (I think it's timeout? Check man pages), change it to zero.
 
You can also have grub remember the last option you selected (from a subset of all the options). This page provides a simple example.
 
Thanks, i'll fiddle with the config tonight :)
 
Had the same problem as OP today, too bad I didn't see this thread earlier. :(
 
This very problem has happened to me twice and made me hate linux, although I realize GRUB is not linux. Seems you can't get the one without t'other.

Unfortunately, about every 6 months I forget how poorly it went last time and try again. I never learn.
 
wussboy said:
This very problem has happened to me twice and made me hate linux, although I realize GRUB is not linux. Seems you can't get the one without t'other.

Unfortunately, about every 6 months I forget how poorly it went last time and try again. I never learn.
Click to expand...

I know older versions of RedHat had LiLo as a boot manager, not sure if the Linux flavors still use that or not. As far as I can tell, Grub has pretty much taken over.
 
wussboy said:
Unfortunately, about every 6 months I forget how poorly it went last time and try again. I never learn.
Click to expand...
Same here. Each time, the software has matured more, but it's still not to a point where I wouldn't lose functionality I already have in XP.
 
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