How do I protect my XP installation?

[JK]

Okay, here's my situation:

I have WinXP at this point and that's all. I once used Mandrake 7.1 a
few years ago and had found it not to my liking. However, my brother
has been using Mandrake 9.1 for a few weeks now and says the
improvements are like night and day, so I'm planning to give it
another shot.

I currently have disk0 with XP Pro and NTFS as my first partition, FAT
32 as my second partition and about 13 GB of unused space that I plan
to use for Linux.

I intend to dual boot for the reason that I have a few games I
occasionally like to play and want to keep XP.

My question is this:

IF I decide to uninstall Mandrake after using it for a while, what do
I need to do to put the MBR back to what it was? Here's what I'm
thinking if I decide to uninstall Mandrake. Tell me if this will work
or not.

I would boot back to XP, delete the Mandrake partition using Partition
Magic 8, and use the Recovery Console's "fixmbr" command to set the
MBR back to what it was. Will this work or will Linux's LILO destroy
my option of choosing the Recovery Console?

Please point me in the right direction. I just want to be able to get
rid of Mandrake IF I don't like it and not hurt my XP installation.
Please advise.

[Michiel]

> Okay, here's my situation:
>
> I have WinXP at this point and that's all. I once used Mandrake 7.1 a
> few years ago and had found it not to my liking. However, my brother
> has been using Mandrake 9.1 for a few weeks now and says the
> improvements are like night and day, so I'm planning to give it
> another shot.
>
> I currently have disk0 with XP Pro and NTFS as my first partition, FAT
> 32 as my second partition and about 13 GB of unused space that I plan
> to use for Linux.
>
> I intend to dual boot for the reason that I have a few games I
> occasionally like to play and want to keep XP.
>
> My question is this:
>
> IF I decide to uninstall Mandrake after using it for a while, what do
> I need to do to put the MBR back to what it was? Here's what I'm
> thinking if I decide to uninstall Mandrake. Tell me if this will work
> or not.
>
> I would boot back to XP, delete the Mandrake partition using Partition
> Magic 8, and use the Recovery Console's "fixmbr" command to set the
> MBR back to what it was. Will this work or will Linux's LILO destroy
> my option of choosing the Recovery Console?
>
> Please point me in the right direction. I just want to be able to get
> rid of Mandrake IF I don't like it and not hurt my XP installation.
> Please advise.

Use the option to start-up with a disk, instead of changing the MBR.

[GregMo]

JK > wrote in news:fsabdv0uao7airdffoihrivgm1d36vge45@
4ax.com:

> I would boot back to XP, delete the Mandrake partition using Partition
> Magic 8, and use the Recovery Console's "fixmbr" command to set the
> MBR back to what it was. Will this work or will Linux's LILO destroy
> my option of choosing the Recovery Console?

Yes, FIXMBR will do what you're wanting, just did practically the same thing
here (difference being it was redhat instead of mandrake). I freaked at the
idea too, but finally said to hell with it and tried it anyway. Works like a
dream.

Cheers,
GregMo

[JK]

On Thu, 29 May 2003 11:55:45 -0000, GregMo
> wrote:

>JK > wrote in news:fsabdv0uao7airdffoihrivgm1d36vge45@
>4ax.com:
>
>> I would boot back to XP, delete the Mandrake partition using Partition
>> Magic 8, and use the Recovery Console's "fixmbr" command to set the
>> MBR back to what it was. Will this work or will Linux's LILO destroy
>> my option of choosing the Recovery Console?
>
>Yes, FIXMBR will do what you're wanting, just did practically the same thing
>here (difference being it was redhat instead of mandrake). I freaked at the
>idea too, but finally said to hell with it and tried it anyway. Works like a
>dream.
>
>Cheers,
>GregMo

Thanks