Saturday, January 3, 2009

Uninstalling Linux on a dual boot Vista

Thats something I would never do in my wildest dreams. However my dad has a company given HP Compaq 6510 laptop and I somehow persuaded him to install Ubuntu on this laptop. The company sysadmins hated the idea and refused to recover the system when asked . So daddy gave the laptop to me a day before I left for Bangalore and asked me to "Uninstall Ubuntu" (though he enjoyed every experience of working with it..... :) ) 

So to uninstall Ubuntu without touching Windows Vista you need :
Windows Vista DVD
Ubuntu LiveCD

Procedure:
1) Insert the Vista DVD and restart your computer.
2) Be alert.... Press a key when prompted.
3) Select language , time format , keyboard.
4) Click Repair your computer ... (It will be on the lower left corner)
5) Click the operating system you want to repair.... (The DVD checks for all installations of Windows and enlists all the windows operating systems. If you have just one select it) Click Next.
6) Click Command Prompt
7) Type Bootrec.exe/FixMbr and press enter .

Thats it ...
Vista bootloader has overwritten MBR and now Vista will boot automatically ... 
Till now the Linux partitions are safe and since Vista s bootloader doesnt recognize Linux OS you wont be able to boot into Linux. You may have to recover GRUB to do so. 

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