On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 09:57:59AM -0000, Karl Middleton wrote:

Can anyone advise on how to safely remove an operating system on a dual boot laptop?

I have a laptop with a WIN XP partition and a Red Hat 7.2 partition, with GRUB as the boot manager.

I have Partition Magic 7.0, but I'm concerned about just repartitioning/reformating the Linux partition. I don't want to end up with an unbootable laptop. Preferably I would end up with just one partition (Windows C:) and the laptop would boot straight into Windows without any boot manager program.

First of all, check your PM box to see if it supports Win XP. They release a new PM for pretty much every version of Windows, so it should definitely say. If it doesn't support Win XP, don't use it, end of story.

My advice would be: * Set up GRUB to boot Win XP immediately, without displaying a menu or anything. That will make it pretty much invisible. AFAIK (and I don't know Win XP that much), it's impossible to reinstall the boot sector without reinstalling the whole OS. * Boot up PM and remove all the Linux partitions, leaving you with the Windows C: partition and a hunk of free space. * Resize C: so it absorbs all that space.

The boot sector runs completely independently of the Linux installation, so GRUB should continue to work without it. However, you won't be able to control it, so be careful when you set it up! Having a boot disk around so you can get to Linux (before you erase it) in case you fluff the GRUB setup would be a good idea.

Oh, and wait a week so everyone can shout me down ;)

If this is the first time you've messed around with partitions (or even if it isn't), backing up your files is a smart move. Programs can be reinstalled, dissertations can't.

Finally, just so you know, Windows actually does use a boot manager it's just an incredibly tiny one which can only boot Windows from the first primary partition. So having invisible GRUB is basically the same.

Cheers, Alexis