[Novalug] reverse linux question -- GRUB or LILO installed?

[Paul D. Bain]

---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 16:57:46 -0400
>From: Nino Pereira <pereira at speakeasy.net>  
>Subject: [Novalug] reverse linux question  
>To: novalug <novalug at calypso.tux.org>
>
>Hi,
>
>my question is exactly the opposite of what I should ask:
>I blame that on my son.
>
>Some time ago I loaned him my linux laptop computer. It turns
>out that he never figured out how to use the system. For him it's
>a pain in the ^(7r: his whole world uses Windows, and the various
>conversions (between, say, OpenOffice and Word) are too bothersome.
>
>So, my question is: how do I add Windows? or, as he tells me,
>his question is: how do you get linux off the machine and Windows
>on it.

Nino,

    The answer to this question may depend on whether either GRUB or LILO were installed in the master boot record (MBR), the first 512 bytes of the HDD. I am not sure that the Windows XP installer automatically over-writes the MBR appropriately. Another issue is whether you want to preserve any of the data currently on the HDD.

>A painful question, but one for which I have no answer. I have
>seen the thread about dual-boot, and ignored it.

    I gave up on dual-boots years ago. Too much trouble for too little gain. I sometimes instead put two HDD's in a single machine, one HDD each for XP and Linux.

--Paul Bain