[vox-tech] Problems with dual boot system (Win 98/RH 7.2)

[Jeff Newmiller]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, Joey Karalius wrote:

> 
> OK, here's what I did.

[...]

> I'm most likely overlooking something obvious, but...
> How do I eliminate all traces of grub so I can start from scratch?

  A:\FDISK /MBR

to give up on Linux, or edit /etc/lilo.conf and run

  /sbin/lilo

In this case, I would not recommend either.  You need a clean reformat.

> Was there an uninstall program for Linux that I missed?

There is no "uninstall" for "Linux".  There may be one for your particular
distribution (I don't use RH), but using FDISK and reformatting the
partitions in use by Linux is the distribution-agnostic method.

> What is kernel panic? I heard it mentioned on the list recently...

When the kernel is unable to proceed at all.  This usually is a result of
disk corruption, unless you are a kernel hacker debugging kernel
modifications.

> How can I load Linux so that it runs completely separate from Windows,
> (ie. no bootloader, stability of one doesn't affect the other, etc.)?

Load it on removable media (Zip, Jaz or "Live CD", or removable hard
disk) and remove Windows from the machine.

Or put it on separate machines.

> Is this even the real problem?

It sounds to me like Win98 crashed hard, and spewed garbage across your
entire hard disk.  This is not common, but there is absolutely no way to
prevent it from happening in a dual boot configuration.

It is _possible_ but very unlikely that you did something in Linux that
damaged Win98.  The symptoms are not consistent with the types of errors
that usually happen in Linux.

> Hopefully some of you dual-booters out there may have run across this
> before.

I still run Windows, but only on dedicated machines or in VMWare
sandboxes.  IMHO, dual boot is only for evaluation, not day-to-day use.

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