From: cwilson@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Christopher S. Wilson) Subject: Re: Reinstalling MS-DOS Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1993 10:06:34 GMT
In article <wier-130293235718@csci-wiermac.etsu.edu> wier@merlin.etsu.edu (Bob Wier) writes:
>I installed Linux on one of our 386 machines here, but
>at this point need to de-install it (moving it to a
>bigger machine, 386 going back to student lab). Using
>Linux fdisk I can zap the partitions just fine. Then I do a
>fdisk from MS-DOS 4.0 (trying to get ahold of 5) and it
>seems to low level format ok. Then I do a format c: /v/s
>and THAT seems to work ok. I can then switch to c: and
>store files, etc. The only thing I CAN'T do is to BOOT
>from the hd ( Maxtor 8051A ). I reallocated the entire
>41 meg to MS-DOS, have it marked as Active, have it first
>in the boot up chain, but zippo...can't boot except from
>the floppy.
I would guess that you installed LILO or some other Linux loader as
the Master Boot Program in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of that drive.
Now that MBR tries to load the rest of the boot loader from some
preset place on what used to be the Linux partition and fails.
If you have Norton Utilities, that may be the easiest way to fix it.
Look under ``Master Boot Program'' in the index of the Disk Explorer
manual that comes with Norton. For version 6.0, pages 3-39 through
3-43 has a detailed description of how to read this record off a hard
drive on a working computer and put it on yours.
If you don't have Norton, e-mail me. If nothing else, I could write
you a little DOS program that should do the trick, assuming you have
some other computer with a bootable hard drive to read the regular DOS
MBP from.