help remove Fedora Core 6

I have been using FC6_64 for a while and feel like don't like it much, so I format the partition that stores FC6. But then when I restart the machine, there is only one line on the screen: "GRUB", or something, I do not remember clearly. Please help me get out of the situation.

 

You can forgotten to format the boot partition .

Are you dual booting with Windows? I recommend simply installing Windows XP, it will override the GRUB boot loader.

 

Yea I had the same problem. My solution was not the standard way but it let me get back into the windows partition. Basically I installed Ubuntu back onto the computer, doing this reinstalled the "GRUB" which, from what I have found, is basically a program that lets you chose what OS you want to boot into. this is copied from another post and might be helpful.

As for uninstalling GRUB, the method that has worked for me in the past is inserting your windows CD (the genuine one, NOT a manufacturer's rescue disk) and then entering the recovery console when the option come up, then issuing the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands. If you don't have a genuine windows disk, I'm not sure what your options are, try searching Google.

 

If you are only going to be running XP on its own, you can boot from your windows cd, use its "recovery system" and type the command "fixmbr". This erases GRUB and only lets you boot Windows partitions.

 

Thanks for the help, guys!
I temporarily installed the FC back to the machine to gain access to Windows, for I do not have XP cd installation yet.

 

clip. This is an ugly example of the inflexibility of Windows. I'm not sure if it's even legal to distribute the two tools that are on the recovery disk (fixmbr and fixboot) that you need. I remember reading about a CD floating around that had just these 2 tools (it was 7 MB or so). Anyway, if you're a little more adventurous, you could do one of the following:

1) Try installing grub for Windows (this should overwrite the grub that comes with FC6 and all it's files would be on the FAT/NTFS partition), so if this succeeds, you could then delete the Linux partitions ( http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/)

2) Get the first 446 bytes (this is where the boot loader is located) from a machine running just Windows XP and overwrite your boot loader (grub) with these 446 bytes - I haven't checked this, but this should work since Window's bootloader is basically a dummy bootloader that looks for an active partition and then hands over control to the 2nd stage and your partition information is in the 64 bytes at the end of the MBR (512 bytes).

I would recommend backing up your MBR before trying any of the above.

 

Update:

clip, You could try using MBRWizard since it'll take care of most of the MBR handling for you instead of doing if by hand / using DD ( http://mbr.bigr.net/)

 

I've got a warning that the file on the HDD may not be accessible if I run the command fixmbr. Is it what you mean?

 

GAG is a popular and easy to install/use boot manager.