Some will run with MAF disconnected.
To reset the ecu, you do not need to take the battery lead/s off at all.
Look in the main fusebox under the bonnet, in there will be a fuse of 3 AMPS, this will be marked KAM, just take this out for 1 minute, put back job done.
KAM stands for Keep Alive Memory, it stores the fine tune settings of the engine running.
tabetha