How to remove grub

**Mic Q** · 10-24-2004, 01:32 AM

Does anyone knows how to remove grub.

Understand that there is something for "fdisk /mbr" , how to do it.

Is this is windows or linux.

**firebyrd10** · 10-24-2004, 01:46 AM

Originally Posted by Mic Q

Does anyone knows how to remove grub.

Understand that there is something for "fdisk /mbr" , how to do it.

Is this is windows or linux.

Thats a windows fdisk command.

**CrashedAgain** · 10-24-2004, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by Mic Q

Does anyone knows how to remove grub.

Understand that there is something for "fdisk /mbr" , how to do it.

Is this is windows or linux.

Question: why do you want to remove grub? are you replacing it with something else (lilo??) ? If not, what are you going to use for a bootloader; Linux must have a bootloader of some sort. So, just overwrite grub with whatever you new bootloader is.

**Mic Q** · 10-25-2004, 12:53 AM

Why remove grub?

I am experimenting with a "half dead" harddisk and installed it with DOS and SUSE. Grub was installed by SUSE. After some testing, i decided to reformat and re-partition this harddisk.
After the reformating and re-partitioning, upon boot up, the system still ask for grub, so i need to learn how to remove it .

Question :
1. Am i right to assume that installing LILO will overwrite GRUB(if GRUB is previously installed) and vice versa?

2. If my harddisk has only windows now, can i still install LILO or GRUB to select booting by windows (after all this is the only OS left)?

3. If above is permissable, then i could install other distribution of Linux (including Knoppix) and configure GRUB/LILO to select the OS for booting up, right?

4. Anyone knows what is the default that Mandrake will load , LILO or GRUB.

5. I am having a WinME for family use and understand that I can (should, must) update to Win2K as the later is more stable.
a. Can anyone confirm it this is true.
b. How can I do the update without losing what inside my harddisk.

Thanks in advance for the info.

**Mic Q** · 10-25-2004, 12:57 AM

One more question to above:

6. the Fdisk /mdr command I need to invoke to remove GRUB/LILO, it is available to ALL windows OS, right?

thanks.

**shah** · 10-25-2004, 03:26 AM

Answers:
1) Yes
2) Yes and No. Grub depending on menu.lst. If menu.lst is deleted, grub won't be able to boot.
Lilo also depends on lilo.conf, but once you update lilo you don't need lilo.conf. You just can't change anything without lilo.conf.
3) Yes and No.
Yes if you do not allow other distro to install Grub/Lilo.
No if (2)
You can just allow other distro to overwrite the mbr and create new Grub/Lilo. Then you edit your Grub/Lilo using your last distro that modified that grub/lilo/mbr.
4)The last time I used, it was Lilo. I believe you have an option to choose.
5)a)Yes, because winme is a the most unstable Os in it's class.
b)I would suggest XP rather than W2k considering the hardwares and softwares support(for family).
6) fdisk /mbr =dos--->winme
fixmbr = xp

**CrashedAgain** · 10-25-2004, 02:53 PM

I agree with shah except perhaps choice of Windows version. I still use winME, if you have it, why not use it. Just take precautions against crashing...for instance separate partition for data. 2K is reputedly more stable than XP.

**Roper** · 11-04-2004, 12:48 AM

I was also looking for a clean, sure way to remove grub, and am sorry to see no solution was offered.

I have tried several times to install Knoppix on a hard drive that had another Linux distro previously installed on it, and grub is never overwritten by the new by “knoppix-installer”. This wouldn't be too bad if the original grub installation was usable for booting Knoppix, but no chance – grub persistent, prevents Knoppix from booting, but doesn't function as a boot loader.

So, I'd like to ask the question again, somewhat modified, though: can anyone explain how to use Knoppix from a live CD to delete a grub installation from a hard derive?

Thanks.

**CrashedAgain** · 11-04-2004, 02:47 AM

Originally Posted by Roper

I was also looking for a clean, sure way to remove grub, and am sorry to see no solution was offered.

I have tried several times to install Knoppix on a hard drive that had another Linux distro previously installed on it, and grub is never overwritten by the new by “knoppix-installer”. This wouldn't be too bad if the original grub installation was usable for booting Knoppix, but no chance – grub persistent, prevents Knoppix from booting, but doesn't function as a boot loader.

So, I'd like to ask the question again, somewhat modified, though: can anyone explain how to use Knoppix from a live CD to delete a grub installation from a hard derive?

Thanks.

Did a google 'grub' then 'uninstall' & got this:

12. How to uninstall GRUB from my hard disk drive?
There is no concept uninstall in boot loaders, because if you uninstall a boot loader, an unbootable machine would simply remain. So all you need to do is overwrite another boot loader you like to your disk, that is, install the boot loader without uninstalling GRUB.
For example, if you want to install the boot loader for Windows, just run FDISK /MBR on Windows. If you want to install LILO (I can't imagine why you want to do such a thing, though), run /sbin/lilo on GNU/Linux.

from http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/grub-faq.en.html#q12

So, running from the CD, you *should* be able to
1) copy /etc/lilo.conf to /home/knoppix so it will be editable
2) edit so that it will install to the HD MBR & shows the partitions & O/S's you want
3) run sudo lilo -c /home/knoppix/lilo.conf

You will of coarse have to mount the HD read/write. There is some howto info on this somewhere in the docs but I can't find it right now. An alternate (since it sounds like you have Knoppix on the HD but can't get into it) would be to boot into it which you should be able to do by booting with 'knoppix root=/dev/hdaX noinitrd ro ' (this from a post here somewhere) and then run lilo from there.

PS: You're famous. You're post is #5 on the google search list.

**Roper** · 11-04-2004, 07:31 PM

CrashedAgain, thanks for your help. The information you provided gave me what I needed to fix my problem -- the removal of the corrupt (?) copy of grub which hung on after the Knoppix installation. I still don't understand, though, why grub defectively remains on the HD and takes over the boot process, supposedly after being overwritten by another distro.

Regarding your comment, "[the] post is #5 on the google search list": Thats good news, as others will be able to easily find your most helpful contribution.

Thanks again.