Removing Boot Manager

[stump]

I am having trouble removing Lilo from my computer. I've read in other threads that you do this by running fdisk/mbr. I did this and Lilo is still there. I have two hard drives. On one, I have win XP. On Disk two I have Red Hat Linux, and Win 98. Is there another way? I need to keep win XP, but can (very reluctantly) reformat the win 98 & Linux disk. On top of that, Win XP has loaded its own boot loader, which runs after Lilo, where one choice boots XP, the other gives an error message & locks up. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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System:

AMD Athlon XP 1800
Board: ASUS A7N266

ATAPI-CD ROM-DRIVE-56MAX
HP CD-Writer+ 9100
3.5" Floppy drive
IOMEGA ZIP 100
MAXTOR 7200 60 GB
MAXTOR 7200 80 GB

Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
512 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440
Pinnacle DC10plus, Motion-JPEG VideoIO Board
Promise Technology Inc. Ultra IDE Controller
On-Board C-Media Audio
Lucent Win Modem
NETGEAR FA330 Fast Ethernet Adapter

[Statica]

Boot to Linux .. and run /sbin/lilo -u to unload it

[stump]

I tried booting into linux and it gave me ERROR 22...NO SUCH PARTITION. I guess fdisk/mbr might have done something? Anything else I can try? I am very new to linux. I was experimenting and messed my machine up a little. I moved Linux to another machine, one with only one HD and everything is running fine. I just need to get my main machine back to normal again.

[abomb7682]

You may use fdisk /mbr to have windows restore its default mbr (master boot record) but i believe windows XP does not have support for this (or most any command line goodies) anymore. You would have to boot from a boot disk (windows 98 boot disk is what i use) and type "fdisk /mbr" at the command prompt and the system will boot to the first partition of the first harddrive (in your case windows XP). Then to fix the windows XP boot loader, go to "system" in the control panel. It should allow you to remove that second option and/or skip the menu all together.

Note that after removing lilo you will no longer be able to access linux or windows 98. You may be able to add windows 98 to the XP boot menu but i'm not familiar with NT style boot loaders and could not help you with that.

~Adam

[stump]

BTW, thanks Statica & abomb7682 for helping me out...
I tried fdisk/mbr again at the A:\ prompt. After hitting enter, the system pauses for 2-3 seconds, then goes back to the A:\ prompt. Lilo is still there. I'll give you my HD layout, according to my PQ Boot Magic boot disks (I was using PQ Boot Magic before the Linux install--What a mess!), mabe that will help a little;

Disk1: Linux ext2 -- Linux swap -- Win 98 fat 32 -- fat32 Logical\
Disik 2: Windows XP Fat 32 -- Fat 32 logical

Actually, I just noticed that it is grub loading the OS, even though the last time I installed Linux I used Lilo. It's also in text, where it was graphical when I was using grub. Hmmm... the BIOS is set to boot to Disk 2, for what that's worth.

I saw where to set the XP boot loader, I'll change that when I get grub off my machine because the default boot setting is the one that points nowhere.

[stump]

Got it figured out. Disconnected drive 1, re-booted, THEN ran fdisk/mbr, which removd grub. I'm back in business!

I didn't see where to remove the XP boot loader though. I looked in the system area of the control panel & did not see anything that dealt with any boot loader. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. If someone could help me with this last issue, all will be right with the world!

[abomb7682]

The boot loader should be under Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Startup and Recovery in windows XP. If you manually edit the boot.ini (i think thats the file) you should be able to remove your bad boot option.

[stump]

Here is my boot.ini file...

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=C:\
[operating systems]


What should I change?

[Hpro]

go to start - Run - type MSCONFIG and then open Boot.ini you also can edit it and test which boot configurations are OK and which not..
Hpro

[James Mellen]

In XP you can go in to recovery mode and view/rebuild both your boot.ini and your MBR. It turns out that I was in the same boat as you after installing RH Linux 7.3 on a second drive after installing XP on C:. After a painful lesson on a complete format and restore I now have things going well. My boot.ini on C: gives 3 choices XP, XP Recovery Mode, and RH Linux. RH Linux then points to a boot.lnx file (name not important as long as it matches) that I copied from Linux to C:\ via a floppy. This in turn points (in machine language) to my /boot directory in Linux where
grub.conf resides. Let me know if you do not have it solved and need more info. I can send the files and command to make the boot.lnx file if you wish.
Jim

[stump]

Thanks for all of your help. Win XP's boot manager is gone!

The problem now is ( Does it ever end? ) that I want to use PQ Boot Magic as my boot manager, now that I have only winxp & 98 on this machine. When I choose XP from PQ boot magic, the computer restarts itself. It runs fine if I disconnect the 98 disk. I think I will low-level format the xp drive & re-install. Everything is backed up & ready to go.
BTW, James Mellen, I would appreciate the info you have. I will want to put Linux on my good machine when I know the OS a little better. It is now on a PII 350mhz box, along with win 98 and working fine.