grub hostage?

[lewzer]

hello out there, I'm trying to remove Redhat 7.3 from my computer to put windows on it (dont worry im putting linux back on another computer, I'm not giving up!) But every time i try to reboot the machine, it seems to skipp all bios options (meaning "press F1 to enter the bios") and gos straight to the grub screen. This also happens with a Redhat bootdisk ,Windows boot disk, and the Redhat/Windows cd. (to check the Bios settings) I have tryd this with worm and cold boots, and combined those with both bootdisks and both cds. The only thing I'm left to think is maybe the problem lies with grub please help, even if im way off Thanks in advance!!

[Sgt_B]

So whats the very first thing that comes up when you start the computer? Instant -Grub? Does it go through the POST at all?

[lewzer]

no, no post, its almost instent grub. well no sorry theres maybe a second when the screen has only this...

- (a dash in the top left corner)
then grub, its really strange

[Sgt_B]

Well, sorry but I've never heard of such a thing. You said you tried a cold boot right? What kind of machine is this (make/model)? I've never heard of someone disabling the BIOS from coming up, but you never know. Has this always been your machine? Might sound pretty basic, but are you sure your monitor has warmed up enough to display the post?
Either way sounds very very very strange......
Either way, BIOS supercedes all things grub, so your boot disks should boot to the proper OS, unless the boot order is changed in BIOS.
So I ask again....is this your computer?

[chefer]

Not likely bypassing bios, but could be a masked post, like that of a dell or gateway. It ensures the user isn't hosing up their system by meddling around where they don't belong.
Pull the cmos battery for a while (3-5 minutes should be more than enough). Reseat the battery and boot. Hold F1, or DEL or what ever your system requires of you to access the bios. You should get access.
Otherwise, you could try to force a boot error or something like that. Maybe disconnect the primary master HDD from the ide ribbon and boot again. If all goes well, it won't detect grub and will make you modify the bios in the belief that you misconfigured it because it isn't seeing the HDD

Regards and good luck.

[Sgt_B]

Good trick about yanking the hard drive chefer! I didn't even think about that one.

[titanmike]

I think chefer is right it is a masked post
Dell Gateway and HP do it
There is a jumper on the m/b to change this
I also like the h/d trick
Mike

[rcgreen]

Here's one unusual possibility. Some older COMPAQs
have the setup program on a special hidden partition
on the hard drive. If you repartition or replace the drive,
setup becomes unavailable until you restore the
special "diagnostic partition".

It wouldn't be a COMPAQ, would it?

The other possibility, as already mentioned,
is that the message telling you what key(s)
to press to enter setup has been suppressed.
In this case, setup is still available. You just
have to press whatever key(s) blindly, hoping you
remembered the right ones.

Also, some new motherboards will not enter setup
unless you move a jumper. this is to protect against viruses
that can attack a flashable BIOS.

[Tedob1]

"fdisk /mbr", without the quotes, will reset the boot record overwriting grub