Fixing MBR and removing Linux

Well its been a substantial gap since I've written my last post. People out there, when start trying Linux feel initial difficulties with it and may complain. Some say "Oh!! my wifi driver is not working and I can't get softwares for it or have trouble updating it!" and some say "I don't like the way it looks; windows looks good". They may install Linux dual booted with windows (Vista) but later may think of getting rid from it. So for the sake of sympathy with such people I am going to tell how to remove Linux without losing any data or any re-installations. First you need to know about MBR (Master Boot Record). MBR is the first 512 -byte boot sector and is the first sector of the hard disk. It is mainly used by the computer for

• Bootstrapping operating systems after the BIOS has been loaded
• Holds the primary partition table of system
• Identifying storage medias individually

So when ever we go for multiple boot an entry is made in the MBR, which includes the required information about various partitions in which different operating systems reside. This information is helpful to identify the different boot sectors and come up with a menu (Grub Loader). Grub Loader or Boot Menu enables the user to boot the OS of his choice when system starts. So when we dual boot our system an entry is automatically made in MBR containing information about the current operating systems (Linux and Windows) installed in the system.

Problem comes when because of lack of knowledge; inorder to remove Linux from our machine we formats the Linux partition along with the swap and end up with nothing getting booted. The reason is that the MBR resides in the partition in which Linux is installed, which gets removed when we format the Linux partition. So when system boots it doesn't have sufficient information. So in this case we need to fix the MBR. Just follow these steps :

1.Insert the vista cd and boot from it.

2.When the the install screen comes press repair windows





3.Open the command prompt and type the this command

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr

4. Reboot and you are done.


But at last I'll say that you need to give some more time when using Linux . There is a quote
"Linux is a user friendly OS ; But it's very selective in choosing its users.."