Uninstalling Grub

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Uninstalling Grub
started by: ????

Posted by ???? on Sep. 19 2007,08:50

How do I uninstall the Grub bootloader on a formated hdd?

Thanks

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 19 2007,12:55

Installing a new bootloader should do it. If you plan to install a new operating system on that harddrive, the installation disk will probably already be bootable. As long as your bios is set to boot from the installation media (cdrom, usually) before the harddisk, it should ignore the existing bootloader.

You could probably also use the dd command to overwrite the boot sector of the drive.

Posted by ???? on Sep. 20 2007,00:36

What is the dd command?

Thanks

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 20 2007,03:20

Example fromsomewebsearch: < http://linuxgazette.net/issue55/tag/20.html >

Posted by ???? on Sep. 20 2007,07:35

When I use the command dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda it says I do not have permission. How do I get by that?

Thanks

Posted by Juanito on Sep. 20 2007,09:22

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 20 2007,11:24

Anytime you are asked to run commands that will make changes to anything outside your home directory, you should usually assume that you will need to become "root".
< http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html >
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ >

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 20 2007,13:19

Quote (Juanito @ Sep. 20 2007,05:22)

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

Note that that will destroy everything on the drive, not just the mbr.

Posted by jpeters on Sep. 20 2007,20:22

Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Sep. 20 2007,09:19)

Quote (Juanito @ Sep. 20 2007,05:22)

$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda

Note that that will destroy everything on the drive, not just the mbr.

Important point; perhaps he just wants to get rid of the MBR on one partition in which case he might use fdisk to eliminate that partition and then recreate it ?? Any way to dd just one partition (e.g., dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1) ?

edit: I'm guessing the MBR gets placed at the top of hda regardless of what partition the boot files are in (thus dd if /dev/zero of /dev/hda count 1 for removing it). In that case, getting rid of the boot partition wouldn't solve anything (except produce an error about not being able to find the boot image).