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I had mandrake linux on a second hard drive, which I have just
reformatted to FAT32. When I installed linux, LILO was installed in the
MBR. Is it alright for me to use fdisk to remove the MBR, or will it
mess something up?

I'm not really sure, so I'm just checking before I do anything.

Thanks,
Pablo

Pablo wrote:

> I had mandrake linux on a second hard drive, which I have just
> reformatted to FAT32. When I installed linux, LILO was installed in the
> MBR. Is it alright for me to use fdisk to remove the MBR, or will it
> mess something up?

If you're not using a BIOS extension like EZBios there is no problem.
fdisk/ mbr will rewrite the original MBR, thus removing LILO. It will
not affect normal partitions, like those set by fdisk. fdisk /mbr will
work only on the first drive, unless you use an un-doccumented switch.
It's probably best to set up the drive as the master boot drive (80h)
before running fdisk /mbr.

Virg Wall
--
A foolish consistency is the
hobgoblin of little minds,........
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Microsoft programmer's manual.)

VWWall wrote:
> Pablo wrote:
>
>> I had mandrake linux on a second hard drive, which I have just
>> reformatted to FAT32. When I installed linux, LILO was installed in
>> the MBR. Is it alright for me to use fdisk to remove the MBR, or will
>> it mess something up?
>
>
> If you're not using a BIOS extension like EZBios there is no problem.
> fdisk/ mbr will rewrite the original MBR, thus removing LILO. It will
> not affect normal partitions, like those set by fdisk. fdisk /mbr will
> work only on the first drive, unless you use an un-doccumented switch.
> It's probably best to set up the drive as the master boot drive (80h)
> before running fdisk /mbr.
>
> Virg Wall

Thanks, I'll go try it later tonight.

And...what do you mean by "undocumented switch?"