Need to reinstall windows...

[carlos]

Unfortunately I need to reinstall windows. Yep you guessed it malware. Anyway I don't use the windows partition too often, but for a few needed applications.

If I remember correctly, if I reinstall windows it will blow out my MBR, is this right? If so is there an easy method of reinstall it? I would rather not have to also reinstall mint.

Btw, both OSs are on different hard drives.

Thanks for the help ahead of time.

[alan2273]

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2005/11/h ... -boot.html

[JAK]

Unfortunately I need to reinstall windows. Yep you guessed it malware. Anyway I don't use the windows partition too often, but for a few needed applications.

If I remember correctly, if I reinstall windows it will blow out my MBR, is this right? If so is there an easy method of reinstall it? I would rather not have to also reinstall mint.

Btw, both OSs are on different hard drives.

Thanks for the help ahead of time.

Depending on what you need to use Windows for, you may be able to get away with running it under Linux in a VirtualBox session. If you plan to use Windows in an intense graphic situation, then you'll need to do a normal install. As for wiping out your grub, been there done that. There's supposed to be an easy solution to repair the grub, but I never got it to work. You may want to look at remastersys to make an image of your current Mint installation to make a reinstall easier.

Good Luck
.

[merlwiz79]

It will write over the MBR of the hard drive that Windows is using to boot from.
I use BIOS to select which hard drive is 1st to boot then installed Windows.
Then swicthed the hard drive to the one that I wanted for Linux Mint to the 1st hard drive.
Then I use Grub to trick Windows to think it's the 1st hard drive.

As long as the Windows writes the MBR to the correct hard drive, you shouldn't have to reinstall grub.

[carlos]

Thank you all for the quick responses. Chances are, I will just wait till Celena goes gold. I always like to do a full reinstall when new OSs ship, so I will make my move then to reinstall windows.

@Jak yep unfortunately the big guns, such as adobe products i need windows for. And some few small ones for my printer.

@merlwiz79 Your solution seems simple. But, how would I trick Windows with grub?

Again Thanks you all!

[merlwiz79]

Thank you all for the quick responses. Chances are, I will just wait till Celena goes gold. I always like to do a full reinstall when new OSs ship, so I will make my move then to reinstall windows.

@Jak yep unfortunately the big guns, such as adobe products i need windows for. And some few small ones for my printer.

@merlwiz79 Your solution seems simple. But, how would I trick Windows with grub?

Again Thanks you all!

Here is the part for Windows in my menu.lst:

Code: Select all

title		Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root		(hd1,0)
savedefault
map		(hd0) (hd1)
map		(hd1) (hd0)
chainloader	+1

title		Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)
root		(hd2,1)
savedefault
map		(hd0) (hd2)
map		(hd2) (hd0)
chainloader	+1

If you reinstall Windows 1st then Celena, this should be added automatically.
I always have to add the

Code: Select all

map		(hd0) (hd1)
map		(hd1) (hd0)

though.

[carlos]

Thanks Again!

As soon as I get to finish with my laptop, I will hit the desktop with this new knowledge.

[Stretch]

Some very interesting info in this thread. Thanks for posting it you guys

[Husse]

I think you can install Windows and then follow the wiki
http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... _your_grub
I've done this several times but not after a windows install but when distros with installers not quite so friendly to other distros as uiquity has messed up grub