Linux Format forums

[grunt]

Hi

I'm running the Debian environment on a second machine and want to uninstall it from my old laptop as it is now my girlfriend's. I installed it to a USB hard drive, but it never ran due to a kernel panic on init when I tried to start it up?!

Simply unplugging the USB drive is obviously no probs, but how straightforward is removing the GRUB boot loader from her machine without being able to get in to Debian in the first instance?

Also, kernel panic, what was that all about?!!

Thanks

[drws]

Without knowing too much about your kernel panic, but seeing that after you installed debian on the usb hdd it never started even once, I would guess that the kernel/ramdisk didn't have any drivers for the usb hdd. (The installer kernel might have. I haven't used any recent debian installers)

As for grub, you don't remove it as such, you need to replace it with another boot loader.
If there is no OS on the laptop at the moment and you're going to install one, then that OS will install whatever boot loader it needs over the top of grub.

[grunt]

Much appreciated. The laptop runs XP and this is how I need to leave it for my girlfriend. How would I go about replacing it in this case? The GRUB boot is located on the USB drive.

Thanks for this, getting started with Linux seems to be the toughest bit!

[drws]

If you want to re-install your windows boot loader, you need to boot from your xp cd, but instead of going though a normal setup, you have the option of using the "Recovery Console". When running the recovery console you can use the command 'fixmbr' to write a new windows boot loader. (More about the recovery console here -> http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/recovery_run_console.mspx )

Its worth sticking with Linux, being free and all means you can try it as many times as you like in as many ways as you like.

[grunt]

Really useful thanks.

I'll def stick with Linux though, the community seems brilliant!