Arne Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 Hello Guys, When I installed 2006 PP I put it on my master hard disk in dual boot with XP. At the time I used my slave hard disk for mirroring my XP data. Now I have installed an external USB 250Gb hard disk for backup and mirroring XP and Linux data. So my slave hard disk is free and I want to move 2006 to this hard disk. How do I un-install 2006 from the master hard disk and get rid of the mbr bootloader. I don't want to reinstall XP since I don't have XP CD available. Can anyone provide a simple and secure way of un-install 2006 and the bootloader, preferably a step by step. Even still a newbie I am comfortable with both terminal and GUI even though I trust terminal more than GUI. Please Guys, I am ready and a quick reply is very welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted November 15, 2005 Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 You cansimply install 2006 on your second hd and set up your bootloader to only list xp and the 2006 on the second hd. The previous installation of 2006 will just sit there . When you install on the second hd, your slave, put the bootloader on the mbr. Make sure the other 2006 on hda is not listed. You can then delete the partitions you set up with 2006 on hda after the new instrallation. Think of it as installing another distro. It should be simple and striaght forward. One thing you can do, before deleting the other partitions, is move you /home to your new set up, the cp -ax command should do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arne Posted November 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 15, 2005 polemicz, Thank's, a lot of things is easy when you now how to do. You pointed out a very easy way. I will follow and report back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arne Posted November 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 21, 2005 Hello polemicz, SOLVED After a bumpy ride with changing and moving external internal hard drives, not linux fault I am able to report back. You said: You cansimply install 2006 on your second hd and set up your bootloader to only list xp and the 2006 on the second hd. The previous installation of 2006 will just sit there . When you install on the second hd, your slave, put the bootloader on the mbr. Make sure the other 2006 on hda is not listed. You can then delete the partitions you set up with 2006 on hda after the new instrallation. When I installed and setup the bootloader and booted the old linux partitions on the hda did not show up and was not accessible for deletion. Secondly I was not offered the MBR as a default location for boot loader but hda was offered and I accepted that. The new Linux on hdb was working nicely. Then I installed again and choose manual partition and then I first deleted all the old linux partitions then switched to the slave hard disk (hdb) and made new partitions and installed 2006 without problem. This time I was offered MBR as default. So now all is clear and good. :D I assume MBR is located on the master hard disk on the first partition where XP is installed. If that's the case is there any difference if it says hda. Can you please elaborate a little on this, polemicz? Anyway thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 21, 2005 Report Share Posted November 21, 2005 mbr means "master boot record" which generally refers to the boot record on hda. hda is the master device on your primary ide controller. hdb would be the slave device on the primary, hdc would be the master device on the secondary, and hdd would be the slave device on the secondary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arne Posted November 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2005 Thanks Ixthusdan, Yes my assumption was right. As long as mdv propose to put the boatloader in hda or MBR it's OK. I was also wondering about about why mdv sometimes propose hda and sometomes MBR????? Just for my understanding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 22, 2005 Report Share Posted November 22, 2005 I am not sure about your question, but I beleive you are asking why you are given a choice? Mandriva will load the bootloader whether on the mbr or on the boot sector of the drive in which it was installed. So, if you are installing to hda, hda would be the second choice. If you installed to hdb, then hdb would be the second choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sprinthead Posted November 22, 2005 Report Share Posted November 22, 2005 You could always use the XP disk manager and delete the Linux partitions on your hda, and then set a new partition(s) and either format it FAT32 so you have a common partition that both Lin/Win can read/write to, or go NTFS and have it as read only. That is of course unless the developers have got writing to an NTFS partition all working 100% now ! I need to investigate that point further now ! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 22, 2005 Report Share Posted November 22, 2005 Do not use the xp manager, unless you want problems with your installation. The rule of thumb is that linux stuff works with everything and windows stuff only works with windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arne Posted November 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2005 Thanks guys. So, where is the MBR actually located on the disk and where is located when you choose hda. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 23, 2005 Report Share Posted November 23, 2005 :D The mbr is found on the boot sector of hda. I think you are still confusing a device (hda) with a sector on a device (mbr). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arne Posted November 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2005 Thanks, Now you made it clear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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