From Dual-Boot with GRUB back to Win XP Pro "pure" system

[Guest]

Hi! A couple of years ago I changed my system into a dual-boot (Win XP Pro
and Fedora Core 2 LINUX) by re-partitioning the HD and using GRUB, the boot
loader supplied with the LINUX implementation. I played with FC2 a bit, but
didn't find it aas useful as I thought it would be, and so now I use my
system with Win XP Pro 99.5% of the time. I have two IDE drives installed,
one formatted as FAT32 (to allow sharing of files between the two OS'es),
with another small partition set up just for the LINUX OS, and the second HD
formatted for LINUX. I recently decided to add a new SATA HD in the system
and I went to format that drive using the tool provided with it (MaxBlast4),
but I can't because MaxBlast sees the dual-boot GRUB loader in the MBR and
refuses to go any further. <SIGH> That's the last straw. I want now to
change this system back to a pure Win XP Pro system, but I want to do it
without losing all the stuff that I have installed in the Windows partition
of my boot (C drive.

FDISK would have worked for me in the past, but it is no longer suppled with
XP (probably because it isn't compatible with NTFS). But my system is still
FAT32, so could I use FDISK /MBR in my case? If so, where would I find or
make a boot floppy with an acceptable version of FDISK on it? If not, then
what do I do now?? THANKS!

 

[Beemer Biker]

Hi! A couple of years ago I changed my system into a dual-boot (Win XP
Pro
and Fedora Core 2 LINUX) by re-partitioning the HD and using GRUB, the
boot
loader supplied with the LINUX implementation. I played with FC2 a bit,
but
didn't find it aas useful as I thought it would be, and so now I use my
system with Win XP Pro 99.5% of the time. I have two IDE drives
installed,
one formatted as FAT32 (to allow sharing of files between the two OS'es),
with another small partition set up just for the LINUX OS, and the second
HD
formatted for LINUX. I recently decided to add a new SATA HD in the
system
and I went to format that drive using the tool provided with it
(MaxBlast4),
but I can't because MaxBlast sees the dual-boot GRUB loader in the MBR and
refuses to go any further. <SIGH> That's the last straw. I want now to
change this system back to a pure Win XP Pro system, but I want to do it
without losing all the stuff that I have installed in the Windows
partition
of my boot (C drive.

FDISK would have worked for me in the past, but it is no longer suppled
with
XP (probably because it isn't compatible with NTFS). But my system is
still
FAT32, so could I use FDISK /MBR in my case? If so, where would I find or
make a boot floppy with an acceptable version of FDISK on it? If not,
then
what do I do now?? THANKS!

Look here, this should do what you want and is good for 30 days
http://www.bootitng.com/bootitng.html
make a note of the volumn serial# (so it can be restore) and save off your
wpa files and you mght get away without haveing to re-activate.

What was the problem with the SATA??? Were you trying to make it the boot
disk and/or FC2 has no drivers for SATA?


--
=======================================================================
Beemer Biker (e-mail address removed)
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
=======================================================================

 

[Guest]

No, the problem is more fundamental than that. Windows doesn't even see the
drive.

 

[Guest]

I should be more specific. The drivers for my Maxtor SATA PCI card and the
drive are installed, and the Device Manager recognizes the Maxtor 6B200M0 as
a SCSI drive (as it should), but the drive is not partitioned and formatted,
so Win XP doesn't assign it drive letters. I wanted to use the vendor
supplied Maxtor MaxBlast utility to partition and format it under Windows,
but that's when I ran into the problem -- MaxBlast won't run with the GRUB
loader installed.

 

[Beemer Biker]

I should be more specific. The drivers for my Maxtor SATA PCI card and the
drive are installed, and the Device Manager recognizes the Maxtor 6B200M0
as
a SCSI drive (as it should), but the drive is not partitioned and
formatted,
so Win XP doesn't assign it drive letters. I wanted to use the vendor
supplied Maxtor MaxBlast utility to partition and format it under Windows,
but that's when I ran into the problem -- MaxBlast won't run with the GRUB
loader installed.

XP should be able to handle it. Bring up the disk manager
(control-administrative-management-diskmanagment) and look for your new
disk. It should be there since the device manager found it.
Initialize it, assign a drive letter and format. dont select dynamic. you
should be ok as long as you are not going to boot from it.

 

[Guest]

Thanks! I had no idea that Windows would see it before it was formatted. XP
has some things going for it after all! ;-)