Need to remove GRUB loader

[Taz]

I installed Kubuntu a while back on my laptop. It was installed as a dual-boot OS with my XP Pro. I now want to remove it. I understand that I should delete the Kubuntu partitions first as that will mess up the GRUB loader which may render my machine unable to boot anything. Keeping my XP Pro intact is imperative so I need to remove GRUB safely, restore the MBR back to the XP MBR and then I can delete the Kubuntu partitions.

So, I have two questions:

1. How do I get rid of the GRUB loader and restore the XP loader safely?

2. What software can I then use to delete the former Kubuntu partitions and extend the XP ones to reclaim the subsequently freed up space bearing in mind that i'll probably want to do this from within XP unless there is a better solution?

[oolon]

This is why you never install grub on the mbr of the disk, you install it on your boot partition and set that active!

fdisk /mbr

Works on a number of windows versions. As the MBR is the same block of disk as partition table, if you don't want the data you could zero the start of the disk with

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=256 count=1

If you write down the numbers (listed in fdisk/expert mode) you could infact recover the partions.

EDIT

This looks interesting...

mbrfix

[Taz]

^ I have tried mbrfix. I have made a bootable USB stick with a Win98 image and have tried to execute mbrfix from it but it appears to do nothing. I think that one of the problems is that my USB stick boots to drive C: and also that the Win98 image doesn't recognise my NTFS HDD partitions.

I've also tried fdisk /mbr but that doesn't appear to do anything for, I guess, the same reasons.

I don't have my Windows XP CD with me but will try the Recovery Console when I get home.

[watercooled]

Type fixmbr at the recovery console then use disk management from within Windows to delete the old partition and resize your Windows one.
Edit: I can't remember if you can resize partitions from disk management in XP, if not you could use Gparted from a LiveCD or Parted Magic.

[directhex]

I can't remember if you can resize partitions from disk management in XP

You can't.

[nichomach]

...but you can boot your machine from UBCD4WIN and use the diskpart utility to extend your system partition, then (important) extend the filesystem. You can't usually use diskpart to extend a system partition, but if it's run from UBCD4WIN it'll treat the system partition as just A.N. Other data partition.

[Taz]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. When I got home I tried an XP Pro CD and ran the Recovery Console. Unfortunately, as it's a work laptop, I didn't have the Administrator password so that didn't work.

I then burnt two ISO images onto two different CD-Rs: Ultimate Boot CD and GParted. I booted off the Ultimate Boot CD and managed to find a DOS utilities folder. In there was the 'fdisk' command so I did 'fdisk /mbr'. That got rid of GRUB, finally!

Next I booted off the Gparted CD. I used the utility to delete the Linux main and swap partitions and then extended my D: drive to use up the released space. It took quite a while in the end but after a good cleanup with CCleaner the XP boots very quickly now and everything seems to be working fine. I was a bit nervous as it's a work laptop!

Once again, thanks for all the advice.