A friend has a PC with windows only on the main boot disk, and another windows + F13 on the second disk.
Because he did not install grub on sda, he can only boot windows on sda. Bios boot menu does not allow him to select the second disk for booting. Only way he can boot second disk is by disabling main disk (sda) in bios, and then bios will boot from the second disk.
Since I do not have such a setup, nor such a PC, I needed to find out the following:
if main disk is disabled in bios, and fedora is booted from 2nd disk, is boot disk named /dev/sda as far as Fedora is concerned? Or is it named /dev/sdb ??
So, now if he wants to use grub-install to iinstall the boot loader onto the bios-disabled-drive, a- is that drive visible to Fedora? b- if it is visible, what will it's name be? c- Assuming it is visible and Fedora names it /dev/sdb and he runs: grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb
will grub-install attempt to put the grub image files in the root directory of /dev/sdb?? (Note: as explained above, the main boot drive, disabled-in-bios, is all a windows drive). I am concerned that grub-install might damage windows.
On Mon, 2010-08-30 at 20:04 -0700, JD wrote:
A friend has a PC with windows only on the main boot disk, and another windows + F13 on the second disk.
Because he did not install grub on sda, he can only boot windows on sda. Bios boot menu does not allow him to select the second disk for booting. Only way he can boot second disk is by disabling main disk (sda) in bios, and then bios will boot from the second disk.
Since I do not have such a setup, nor such a PC, I needed to find out the following:
if main disk is disabled in bios, and fedora is booted from 2nd disk, is boot disk named /dev/sda as far as Fedora is concerned? Or is it named /dev/sdb ??
So, now if he wants to use grub-install to iinstall the boot loader onto the bios-disabled-drive, a- is that drive visible to Fedora? b- if it is visible, what will it's name be? c- Assuming it is visible and Fedora names it /dev/sdb and he runs: grub-install --recheck /dev/sdb
will grub-install attempt to put the grub image files in the root directory of /dev/sdb?? (Note: as explained above, the main boot drive, disabled-in-bios, is all a windows drive). I am concerned that grub-install might damage windows.
If one has a F13 DVD one can leave the /dev/sda disk enabled, boot into Rescue mode and insatall the boot onto /dev/sda.
On 08/31/2010 04:31 AM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
If one has a F13 DVD one can leave the /dev/sda disk enabled, boot into Rescue mode and insatall the boot onto /dev/sda.
OK. Will try.
In rescue mode, the root directory will end up being mounted from /dev/sdb2 as /mnt/sysimage So I guess, I would invoke grub-install as follows:
grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/mnt/sysimage /dev/sda
Is this correct?
Recall that /dev/sda is all windows. There is no Linux on it.
Will this then cause grub, which will boot off of sda be able to see the grub.conf menu on /dev/sdb2 ?
Thanx,
JD
On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 09:31 -0700, JD wrote:
On 08/31/2010 04:31 AM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
If one has a F13 DVD one can leave the /dev/sda disk enabled, boot into Rescue mode and install the boot onto /dev/sda.
OK. Will try.
In rescue mode, the root directory will end up being mounted from /dev/sdb2 as /mnt/sysimage So I guess, I would invoke grub-install as follows:
grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/mnt/sysimage /dev/sda
Is this correct?
It would work better if after /mnt/sysimage is mounted you execute: chroot /mnt/sysimage. Then when you execute the grub-install you don't need the redirection parameter --root-directory=/mnt/sysimage. Of course you need to set up the grub.conf to identify /dev/sda as containing Windows.
Recall that /dev/sda is all windows. There is no Linux on it.
Will this then cause grub, which will boot off of sda be able to see the grub.conf menu on /dev/sdb2 ?
Thanx,
JD
On 08/31/2010 01:34 PM, Aaron Konstam wrote:
O It would work better if after /mnt/sysimage is mounted you execute: chroot /mnt/sysimage. Then when you execute the grub-install you don't need the redirection parameter --root-directory=/mnt/sysimage. Of course you need to set up the grub.conf to identify /dev/sda as containing Windows.
OK! Will advise the guy. I am in USA and he is in Australia, so he is using windoze email to give me feedback on what I am asking hom to do.
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Aaron Konstam -
JD