Re: uninstalling Linux

From: Nico Kadel-Garcia (nkadel_at_comcast.net)
Date: 09/26/04 

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 19:45:18 -0400

"Michael C." <mcsuper5@usol.com> wrote in message
news:slrnclboh0.t34.mcsuper5@jaguar.softshoppe.com...
> On Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:41:59 -0700,

> > He didn't say if his WinXP was NTFS or FAT32. If it is NTFS, I think
> > he either has to have a WinXP installation CD and use the repair
> > feature or have a recovery CD with the repair feature. If he doesn't
> > have a repair feature he will most likely have to re-install WinXP.
>
> You don't need to read the partitions, fdisk /mbr should work
> from a DOS boot disk, or Windows 9x/ME boot disk. All the MBR
> does is look for the first active partition and pass control to
> the boot sector of the partition. It isn't the MBR's responsibility
> to read any partitions, nor is it fdisks. Fdisk.exe can set any

Read my lips. "This does not work for NTFS formatted Windows disks, which
includes NT 4.0, Win2K, and WinXP. NTFS is the default for them, and the
Win9x boot floppies cannot deal with NTFS."

Wait, let me say it again in case you've missed it, because you obviously
haven't actually tried it with a real Win9x boot floppy. "This does not
work for NTFS formatted Windows disks, which includes NT 4.0, Win2K, and
WinXP. NTFS is the default for them, and the Win9x boot floppies cannot deal
with NTFS."

The thousands and thousands of web pages that say this are *out of date*, or
are using non-Win9x boot floppies, or formatted the disks with FAT32 only
for Linux access to the disk, or did other interesting things that very few
of them actually manage to mention.

I'd love to have a widget to do this in the Linux world, say on a Linux
rescue CD, since the ability to restore someone's machine to normal Windows
operation after setting up a second disk on the machine with Linux installed
would be quite handy.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Dual Boot for transition to new drive
    ... > I've read through many dual boot posts and still wonder about one thing. ... > have a new HD and I want to install WinXP Pro on it. ... Later on, when you're retiring your old disk, you're ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Unable to load XP on Toshiba Portege 3500
    ... Are you now saying that you have laptop disk with a fully operational ... That you just wish to clone this installation onto ... Win9x machine or with the slave disk method in a WinXP ... It seems your boot CD may be called the "Ultimate Boot CD" ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: program to map out weak HD sectors?
    ... The CDROM is PCMCIA, can't boot from it. ... make a bootable PCMCIA CDROM for this system, ... It's running windows 2000 Professional formatted NTFS. ... I don't have the administrator password or the install disk, but there's a guest user with no password and administrative privileges. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: Unmountable_Boot_Volume
    ... Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console ... I run WinXP Pro on my desktop. ... I was able to successfully Boot with a bootable LINUX CD & mount and access ... WinXP disk but I'm happy to purchase another copy if that will help. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Cant Access DOS
    ... You are going to continue to be frustrated with WinXP until you abandon the ... Throw away that Win98 boot disk! ... This does not mean you should forget what you've learned about MS-DOS. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
Loading