How to get LILO off?

[pgebhard]

I had linux on my comp, but I used partition magic and gave XP the whole drive. The only annoying thing now, is that LILO is still there even though I only have WinXP on my drive. How do I get rid of it?

I guess it has something to do with the MBR

 

[Slikkster]

I'd use the XP Recovery Console and the "fixboot" command. This will write an XP bootsector on the drive, and wipe out Lilo. Here's how to use it:

Recovery Console howto

 

[pgebhard]

ok ill try that, and just out of curiosity, why not fixmbr

 

[Slikkster]

I edited that part out after some other research...however, I'd try fixboot first. You can always go back and use the Recovery Console to use Fixmbr, if need be. The jury seems to be out on why you would need both. Definitely fixboot, and get rid, of course, of any leftover linux files in the root directory after you verify it works.

 

[minendo]

fdisk /mbr in a DOS Prompt. WinXP should then create a new MBR. (At least that is the way Win2k does it.)

 

[pgebhard]

Would this ruin or change any settings I have, or will i just not notice anything?

 

[Slikkster]

I would go the Recovery Console route, dude. No sense in confusing the issue. That's what it's there for.
It shouldn't change your settings. What settings are you referring to, anyway? The only thing you should see is the XP Boot Loader vs. Lilo.

If, for some reason, you get an errors, or if your boot.ini file turns out incorrect, guess what? The recovery console has a utility to fix that, too. It's called Bootcfg. Again, don't use it if you don't need to.

Ok, here's what I found from a Linux site about removing Lilo:

Removing LiLo, GNU GRUB and GNU/Linux
Uninstalling Linux and getting rid of the boot loader are two different things.

The best way to proceed is to delete the Linux partitions from within Linux using either 'diskdrake' or cfdisk /dev/[device] ('device' usually being 'hda' or 'hdb'), then booting into the other operating and cause it to reinstall its boot loader. In DOS/Windows (Win95/98, that is) , that would be achieved by issuing the command

fdisk /mbr

which replaces LiLo or GRUB with the Windows boot code. In Windows 2000 / XP you would boot into the 'system recovery console' and run these commands:

fixmbr
fixboot [drive]

command (with 'drive' being the 'drive letter' of the system partition). That's all.

 

[pgebhard]

Okay, I just did it and fixboot didnt seem to do anything, but fixmbr did the job. I have to say that WinXP is quite a masterpiece. Also, thanks for your help guys.

ADDITION: Again out of curiosity, how big is the mbr?

 

[Slikkster]

Ok, good...now we all learned something...cool. As for the size of the MBR, it's always located on the first sector of the hard drive, so however large that first sector is comprises your answer.

Read here for more info:

MBR Info

 

[XeonTux]

I think the MBR is limited to 512 bytes