[clug] help with install please

[Gary Woodman]

--- oscarb at netspeed.com.au wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I need a little help to re-install win98 on a machine that dual boots
> RedHat7.3
> using GRUB. I don't want to trash the linux partitions, of course.

Of course. I don't use RedHat, 98, or GRUB, so please consider the
following in that light.

> I recall that the installing windows tramples over the MBR.  Is it
> simply a matter of copying it somewhere else (something like:
>   dd if=/dev/hda0 of=/some/where/mbr.backup bs=1024 count=1
> ) then, after the install, using a boot disk and dd'ing it back?

That's how I understand it. I do something similar on my main machine,
dual booting XP and Linux, whenever I run LILO, to dd the partition
boot record to a file on the Windows partition for the Windows boot
loader.

I think you will find that there is no /dev/hda0; you should specify
the device, /dev/hda, to read the MBR, and I'm sure its blocksize is
512.

> Is there a smarter way to do this?

A one line command seems pretty smart to me. I suppose booting from a
Linux floppy and re-running LILO would do the trick. Smarter? That's a
value judgement for each of us.

> Is there anything else?

You may need to use a DOS fdisk to re-set your Windows partition
active. The DOS kernel might install in a different place, in which
case you can just SYS it.

HTH
Gary

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