Linux - Windows dual boot dilemma

[Wombat]

Sorry for this long post but. I have a problem:

I have never used Linux but thought I'd give it a try, so.

The machine is a 700mhz AMD that has a 20 gb drive with windows 98SE, it has a removable bay so I can swap slave drives for diagnostics and partitioning/formatting etc (I run a small home computer biz)

So I had a 7gb drive lying around and I thought I'd play with Linux.
What I did was through the bios, disable the master because I didn't want Linux on there and I thought this was the best way to goof proof myself. So as far as I and I thought the system was concerned there was only 1 HD (7gb in the removable bay) and a CDrom available

I then went about installing Red hat 9. All went very well and smooth, so I was very pleased. I didn't stay around but was available when it wanted the other discs (I set it to workbench). Now I didn't see it do the reboots so when I finally came in it was running Linux, I thought cool.
I then removed the hd as I thought I'd play around with it later and I needed Win 98 to do some other stuff at the mo.

Now here is the problem: I have to have the removable drive in to run windows because now it wants to dual boot, so I can't just have my windows hd run cause I get a Grub error (whatever that is)

Can someone help me get back to just have my original set up? Then is it possible to have it the way I want it?

If this all makes sense please let me know. I have checked the main HD's auto exec and config for anything about Linux and I don't want to have to reinstall Windows...


Thanks,

Paul

[pbharris]

hello,
*if* i understand you - then all you need to do is remove the dirve with linux on it and then run fdisk /mbr from a command line of boot boot floppy under ms windows.

[originel]

like pbharris said...what happened was grub )the linux bootloader)was automatically written to the MBR of your primary drive.

One of the things about linux (or OS's in general) is, AFAIK, the bootloader has to be on the MBR of the primary master in order for any OS to boot...so it was automatically written there.

[Wombat]

Will try that.

Paul

[Wombat]

Thanks, all worked fine.

Is there any way to have the Linux running from that removeable drive without this happening again?

Paul

[pbharris]

sure - don't install the bootlaoder to mbr - i think there is an option to do this in the install of redhat, then create a boot floppy.

[Wombat]

Cool, thanks,,

Yeah, I'm learning new stuff again..

Paul