*BSD News Article 35767


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From: ejohnson@pmip.dist.maricopa.edu (Eric Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Subject: Re: 386BSD un-install...
Date: 13 Sep 1994 09:50:39 -0700
Organization: Maricopa Community Colleges, Phoenix, AZ USA
Lines: 37
Message-ID: <354l8v$cku@pmip.dist.maricopa.edu>
References: <CvtsHJ.17K@hub.cs.jmu.edu> <1994Sep10.055758.22338@news.csuohio.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pmip.dist.maricopa.edu
Summary: other DOS utils for making C: bootable again

In article <1994Sep10.055758.22338@news.csuohio.edu>,
Steve Ratliff <stever@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>pranav singh (singhp@tch1.cs.jmu.edu) wrote:
[...]
>: Can I remove the BSD boot record using a DOS utility ?
>: Any help is VERY welcome.
>
>	The standard response is to boot a dos floppy and do a 
>fdisk /mbr 
>
>	I've had problems with this not working for me.  The Coherent
>mbr is rather tenacious and I've had problems with 386bsd as well.  I
>normally use a DOS disk sector editor like Norton's to overwrite the
>first half dozen sectors with zero's.  This is guaranteed to work but
>will blow away the partition table as well as the mbr so only do it if
>you don't want to save anything on the hard drive and want to start over
>from scratch or restore from a backup.

I have seen this ('A:fdisk /mbr' won't work) behavior as well.  What
I do now is keep Norton Disk Doctor (mine is from 4.5; ndd.exe is
about 125K, if I remember correctly) on a boot floppy; 'ndd' has a 
"make disk bootable" option.  This does NOT blow away the partition 
table, which is nice (I'm sure there are other utilities that have 
similar functionality)...  

This allowed me to recover from a Chicago infestation, as well :-)
Your mileage may vary, etc...

    --Eric
---
"I have seen their information on the lighter side of dumbness. I
 have heard the new statistics, and the stomping on the ground.
 Picking slowly up the rockslide one thing always seems apparent;
 if the climb becomes too much I can always turn around." -- Curt Kirkwood

Eric Johnson -- Maricopa Community Colleges -- Tempe, AZ -- (602) 731-8919
   ejohnson@maricopa.edu -- http://pmip.maricopa.edu/sig/ejohnson.html