Banjo Posted January 24, 2004 Share Posted January 24, 2004 Ok, my HD is failing so I have to get it replaced. I have 3 linux partitions on the drive and one for windows. On my primary drive I have GRUB so I can dual boot. But when I pull out the bad drive and try to boot, GRUB says "GRUB Hard Disk Error" The only way I can boot is to have both drives in there. Is there a way to temporarily only boot from the windows partition or not make GRUB look for the bad drive and cause an error? I googled it and it seems I can edit the grub config file, but I can't because that seems to be stored on the linux parition. Another thing I found on google is to do fdisk /mbr, but this wipes the hd also, doesn't it? Please help, I need to get the drive replaced as soon as possible. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rezza Veteran Posted January 24, 2004 Veteran Share Posted January 24, 2004 running fdisk /mbr doesn't wipe the disk, it just sets the boot sector back to microsoft defaults, you can always install grub again later (assuming you have some other way of bootin into linux - a linux livecd for example, or a linux boot floppy) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Banjo Posted January 24, 2004 Author Share Posted January 24, 2004 Alright, thanks. I thought I saw it somewhere :huh: There was a site that said if you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't do it unless you like the idea of restoring your hard drive from backups. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Banjo Posted January 25, 2004 Author Share Posted January 25, 2004 1 more quick (and probably extremely stupid stupid :pinch: question) Can I use the fdisk /mbr thing with FreeDOS? I'm assuming yes... but I just want to be sure, rezza said, "it just sets the boot sector back to microsoft defaults" /me feels dirty with n00bishness I don't have any 98 setup disk or something else with the fdisk around here except for FreeDOS. /me goes and takes a bath to wash the n00bishness of asking this question off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 25, 2004 Veteran Share Posted January 25, 2004 If it doesn't work, go to bootdisk.com They have downloads of the various OS bootdisks (not just Microsoft stuff). It's a good resource when you get into a pinch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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