[clug] help with install please

[Matthew Hawkins]

> 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.

Be warned.  Some versions of Microsoft Windows thoroughly enjoy trashing
so-called "non-DOS" partitions.  Not that Microsoft would ever stoop to
something as low as preventing competitors products from running [1].  My
favourite way of preventing this from happening is to simply never install
Microsoft Windows.  That also has the amazing side-effect of pre-emptively
preventing a whole ****load of other problems too.
> 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?  Is
> there a smarter way to do this? Is there anything else?

Umm.. so you want to copy the MBR, alter it, then blat back the original
version?*boggles*
Just take your grub floppy (you did make one, right?), install Win98, boot
from the grub floppy and fix whatever Windows broke (unless its hardware,
in which case you're SOL ;)  In laymans terms, you boot the grub floppy
and run "setup" (iirc) and it'll reinstall its bits back in the right
place.  And, as they say, Robert's your father's brother.
[1] *cough* Windows on DR-DOS *cough* (chosen at random from a large pool
of examples)
-- 
Matt