Re: Need Help on Removing Grub (Again)

[Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer]

Boot from a dos floppy and:
fdisk /mbr

address@hidden (RD Lawrence) writes:
> I apologize in advance if this topic has been beaten to death.  I've
> reviewed at least 100+ articles on usenet and haven't found a
> satisfactory answer for a recurring problem.
> 
> Under the heading "How to Uninstall GRUB from my hard disk drive?", the
> FAQ states that there "is no concept uninstall in boot loaders, because
> if you uninstall a boot loader, an unbootable machine would simply
> remain."   This isn't always true.
> 
> Imagine a working system with three drives: hd0, hd1, and hd2 with grub
> and linux installed on (hd1,1).  For various reasons, the user does
> *not* want to install grub in the mbr of hd0.  The user adds a fourth
> drive to the system (hd3) and wants to use it to install a linux system
> that will ultimately replace the linux install on hd1.  However, he
> wants to retain the redundant linux partition on hd1 for reasons of
> safety.  He can install grub on the new disk (hd3) but this won't have
> much impact since hd1 will be first in line at boot time. Perhaps I'm
> mistaken but it seems to me that the ideal solution would be to install
> a boot loader on hd3 after *REMOVING* the boot loader from hd1.
> Removing the old grub bootloader DOES NOT result in an unbootable
> system.  Rather, it allows the user to boot the system that he prefers.
> 
> In briefly reviewing previous discussions on this list and on usenet,
> I've come across the suggestion to use DOS fdisk /mbr.  I'm not sure
> that this would work in the aforementioned scenario, and in any case, it
> seems a bit lame to fall back on DOS in order to remedy a flaw in linux
> software.
> 
> Do a search through the usenet archives on google and you'll turn up a
> gezillion posts asking how to remove grub.  The standard replies are:
> "Why would you want to?" and "Use DOS fdisk /mbr".   Neither of these
> replies will adequately resolve the problem outlined above.   Could
> someone suggest another solution???
> 
> It seems to me that it would be easy enough for someone familiar with
> disk geometry (not me :-)) to add an argument to grub (--erase)
> permitting grub to be cleanly removed from an MBR and a partition boot
> record.   Alternatively, 'dd' could probably do the trick.  Could some
> kind soul recommend the proper lengths and offsets?  Comments?
> Suggestions?
> 
> --
> RD Lawrence
> 504-443-5000
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Mathieu Chouquet-Stringer              E-Mail : address@hidden
    It is exactly because a man cannot do a thing that he is a
                      proper judge of it.
                      -- Oscar Wilde