[Tehbob]

Like the title says, I have Fedora Core on three computers at my office. I work for a rental company and I need to reimage the computers. I went in through Fdisk and deleted all the partitions, but when I use my reimaging software to put a new image on, it does not boot into windows. It'll boot into a blank DOS screen with grub; as it's command head.

How can I remove this feature? This started when I went in and found that the old images we were using (none made by me) had four partitions on the hard drive. Three non DOS partitions and one Extended DOS partition. Our companies IT guy just told me that Fdisk was all it needed. When I asked about the grub thing, he didn't know what it was.

I've tried to go in and install windows XP images, Windows 2k images, and Windows NT just to see if it worked. All I get is grub; and no DOS command I know works. We recently moved our office and I can't find the install CD's for windows 2k server so I have yet to try a dry install.

Should I wipe the harddrives using Killdisk? Can you offer tips? What is grub; ?

If you have any questions for me, please post here. I'll keep reading and checking here for any responses. Thanks.

[fenderfreek]

You'll need to use fdisk /mbr to rewrite the MBR with one for Windows. You should have no trouble after that.

As for "What is Grub?", it is a customizable boot-loader, that allows you to boot multiple OS's and Linux. You can configure Grub to boot Windows for you, but unless you are using Linux alongside it, just using the windows default one is much easier.

[Tehbob]

Thanks for the info, Fdisk /mbr isn't finding an operating system. Even though there is a new Windows Xp image on there.

Am I going to have to try a low level format?

[fenderfreek]

No, that would be like brushing dust off your shoulder with a wind tunnel!
What fdisk /mbr does is rewrites the boot sector, basically overwriting grub, but only works for DOS-based mbr's.
I assumed a non-NT based system, so my mistake here. If you're using XP/NT, instead of 2k, you need to use the recovery console with the "fixmbr" command. If all else fails, you can rewrite the entire boot sector with the "fixboot" command, but try fixmbr first.

[Tehbob]

Alright, as I am a complete moron it seems, where is the recovery console?

[Tehbob]

Oh man, thanks for the help. I just installed a windows 2003 server pack image on there and used fdisk /mbr to fix it.

I really appreciate the help on this. This problem has been hassling me since last wednesday.

I'm going to bookmark this sight and use it often. Thanks again.