Helmut Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 (edited) OK folks, I'm in hot water and here's the problem: I installed Mandriva 2006 on a work-mate's IBM-Laptop without a floppy drive. He wanted to try Mandriva but now wants Windoze back. While the Knoppix CD will boot normally on his box, the Mandriva CD will only boot into normal installation routine and not accept F1 for "recovery mode". The Windows CD will not boot because the old bootloader always shows up and it will not go any further. I tried erasing the Linux partitions, then creating a FAT32 partition and writing it to MBR, but it can't be done with the Mandriva CD, because it insists in a root partition first before it will write anything to MBR. With a normal Windows box, I would now boot a floppy with system files and enter " fdisk/mbr" and the boot loader would be gone, and then Windoze could be installed. However this PC is a laptop with no floppy. Is there a Linux or whatever equivalent for "Fdisk/mbr" ? I really don't know what to do now and am thakful for any suggestions. The matter has gotten complicated, because he carries his laptop with him so I can't really experiment around. Highly appreciating any suggestions, Helmut. [moved from Software by spinynorman] Edited March 7, 2006 by Helmut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 (edited) Booting from the XP installation CD and wiping all partitions before installing would more than suffice. And installing XP on a FAT32 partition is definitely odd- XP works best on NTFS filesystem, and without any of the inherent FAT32 limitations which are way too many. Picking the CD for first boot device is as simple as entering the BIOS and changing the boot sequence. If the windowsXP CD does not boot in any way, then it's borked- any original windowsXP CD should do the trick. Edited March 2, 2006 by scarecrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helmut Posted March 2, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Thanks for the quick reply! So, let me recap: It boots from Knoppix-CD, and from Mandriva-CD, but with either the genuine Win98 or the XP CD, the bootloader comes up and nothing goes further. You are saying it actually should boot? The BIOS of the IBM laptop has a boot sequence: 1) CD 2) IDE_0 Shouldn't it be possible to run fdisk/mbr from the CD? Helmut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 ibm places a special boot partition on their devices that contains id information. If you errased that partition, your ibm recovery cd will not work. B) A standard xp disk should boot to the tools just fine; it is designed to do so. And I concur that you should really be using ntfs with xp. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Windows XP normally only allows you to partition NTFS during installation, but will use FAT32 if you create the partition first. However, since fat usually ain't that great, you should use NTFS for Windows unless you intend to share it with Linux to read/write files. As scarecrows says, if you boot from XP CD, you can press the associated key to delete partitions during installation mode, and then create your new partition for XP and continue as normal. The install should overwrite the MBR with the XP one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helmut Posted March 2, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 (edited) Thanks, Ixthusdan. thanks Ianw1974, So the XP-CD should work but Windblows98 would probably not? Helmut Edited March 2, 2006 by Helmut Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 You could try Win98 if you wanted to, but it's not really as secure as WinNT and higher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scarecrow Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Thanks, Ixthusdan. thanks Ianw1974,So the XP-CD should work but Windblows98 would probably not? Helmut It should also work, unless it's an upgrade CD, and not a retail one. And keep in mind that Windows 98 and Windows Millenium is in fact MS-DOS with a fanky-panky GUI, unable to multitask, handling effectively more than 512 Mb of RAM, understanding unicode, and numerous other things... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 Since win98 is no longer supported, the updates that made it run are also gone. I would not install win98. But, the tools are still there and booting it to the commandline would enable you to reformat the drive, creating a new partition table. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tubasoldier Posted March 3, 2006 Report Share Posted March 3, 2006 Since win98 is no longer supported, the updates that made it run are also gone. No. You can still get the Win98 updates. There are just no new updates made no matter how large a security hole is found or exists. And MS will no longer give any technical support to Win98. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 3, 2006 Report Share Posted March 3, 2006 Basically, past it's sell-by date :P Or, as they word it, End of Product Lifecycle. Won't be long before Win2K hits this mark, or even WinNT if it's not already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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