On Mon, 2004-03-22 at 18:39, Jeff Vian wrote: > Marc Schwartz wrote: > >Understand that my own use of this particular approach is that I do not > >want to overwrite the MBR. I need to essentially preserve the Windows > >partition in as transparent a process as possible, since I lease my HW > >and need to send it back to Dell when the lease expires. > > > >Thus, I want to be able to both install and remove Linux as easily as > >possible, without having to reinstall Windows and the associated > >applications. > > > > > This problem with the MBR is easily handled with one of 2 ways. > > 1. boot to a dos/windows floppy and use "fdisk /mbr". This will > rewrite the mbr and return it to the raw form that dos/windows (among > other OSes) like for booting directly from the active partition. > > 2. before putting the linux boot loader on the mbr, save it with "dd > if=/dev/<boot drive> of=MBR.saved bs=512 count=1" to create the image as > it was befre installing, then when ready to restore it back use dd again > to replace the original copy. All true Jeff. Since I am preserving the Windows partition, it is just as easy to deal with the approach that I have. I don't alter the partitions once the system is set up, so the process is really a one time deal. It has been largely "set it and forget it" through three versions of RH/FC. Thanks for raising these options, which may be helpful to others. Regards, Marc Schwartz
