Re: Removing grub *WITHOUT* using other OS'es. Was: ...Removing Grub (Again)

[Kingsly John]

On Thu, 4 Apr 2002, RD Lawrence wrote:

 |Does anyone know how to safely rewrite MBRs *and* PBRs on linux drives
 |and partitions using *LINUX* tools?  Apart from confusing and
 |ambiguous documentation, the problem of removing grub seems to be the
 |number #1 complaint from grub users.

The MBR (first 512 bytes) contain both bootloader and partition table.

The Bootloader is in the first 446 bytes the remaining 66 bytes contains
the partition table... I suppose you could try zeroing out the first 446
bytes.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=446 count=1

*Warning* I have never tried this before.. and this solution comes with 
absolutely no warranty whatsoever! (Not even sure if a virgin MBR is 
filled with zeroes)

Take a backup of the whole mbr before trying it out.

# dd if=/dev/hdX of=/path/to/mbr-backup bs=512 count=1

You can restore it with 

# dd if=/path/to/mbr-backup of=/dev/hdX bs=512 count=1

If you do try it out... and succeed .. do let us know so that we can add 
it as uninstall instructions.

Kingsly