Hi All, I'm not a Linux guru but I would like to use Linux as an alternative to Windoze wherever possible. To that end I've tried installing a few different distros, the latest being FC4, but I appear to have screwed something up with grub. Sorry, but it's a long story so please bear with me. I had Mandrake 10.0 Official installed on the second hard drive in my PC (XP is on the primary drive) which used lilo (could never get grub to work) as it's bootloader, and all was fine. Then I tried FC4, which installed grub and again everything seemed to work okay, but I couldn't get FC4 to recognise my Windoze drive. Tried mounting the drive as ntfs but it told me ntfs was not a valid file type. A bit of RTFMing told me that the valid file types had to live in a specific file (the name of which I've forgotten now, but you probably know it). ntfs wasn't in there so I added it. Now the mount command told me /hda had an invalid or unrecognisable header. At that point I gave up. Then I bought a mag with a great new distro (according to the mag) called Ubuntu, so decided to install that. It installed grub and again all seemed to be fine, except I couldn't figure out how to change the monitor refresh rate, so my monitor looked like that Win screen saver with the waving flag. (I've never seen a distro yet that has my monitor in it, LG Studioworks 700s). Completely NG so I gave up and reinstalled FC4 (yes, I do have too much time on my hands...). Now when I booted I got what appeared to be a shell with GRUB> as the prompt. The only command that seemed likely to help was boot, but it told me the kernel hadn't been loaded yet, so that didn't work. So I reinstalled Mandrake again, thinking it would overwrite the boot loader and I could start afresh. This worked fine, Mandrake installed lilo and I could boot Mandrake (and Windoze, which settled my nerves a bit...). Reinstalled FC4 again, and made sure I asked it to install grub. Rebooted and up came Mandrake's version of lilo. FC4 had not installed grub apparently. Could still boot Windoze (whew) but if I select Linux the loader hangs. Had a look at fixing it with Windoze. Eventually figured out how to start the recovery console, which allows a "fixmbr" command to fix the mbr. However it popped up so many dire warnings about how running this command could make the rest of the disk inaccessible (i.e. lose everything in Windoze) that I chickened out and didn't do it. Finally found my way to this forum, and found the post about booting with "linux rescue", chroot /mnt/sysimage and grub-install /dev/hda. Tried that and got a message saying /dev/hdb1 (where FC4 is installed) did not have a valid BIOS file (sorry, again I don't remember exactly what the message said, but it was something along those lines. It definitely mentioned /dev/hdb1 and BIOS). Now I'm really stuck. During FC4 install I created 3 partitions on my drive, one for /boot, one for swap and the rest for /. I formatted all partitions prior to each install. My PC has an AMD2200+, 512Mb, primary drive is 40Gb (Win) and slave is 10Gb (Linux). All help very gratefully received! Ian
Ian wrote:
Hi All, I'm not a Linux guru but I would like to use Linux as an alternative to Windoze wherever possible. To that end I've tried installing a few different distros, the latest being FC4, but I appear to have screwed something up with grub. Sorry, but it's a long story so please bear with me. I had Mandrake 10.0 Official installed on the second hard drive in my PC (XP is on the primary drive) which used lilo (could never get grub to work) as it's bootloader, and all was fine. Then I tried FC4, which installed grub and again everything seemed to work okay, but I couldn't get FC4 to recognise my Windoze drive. Tried mounting the drive as ntfs but it told me ntfs was not a valid file type.
Fedora does not come with ntfs modules. you have to install the modules from a source which provides rpms for your distro and kernel version/type. If you are talking about an entry in grub to boot windows, it ought to be visible if you press any key when grub starts loading. you should be able to arrow up or down to your preferred OS to load.
A bit of RTFMing told me that the valid file types had to live in a specific file (the name of which I've forgotten now, but you probably know it). ntfs wasn't in there so I added it. Now the mount command told me /hda had an invalid or unrecognisable header. At that point I gave up.
There seems to be some modules for FC4 at this website. Grab the one for your kernel/type and install it using the rpm program.
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora4.html
Finally found my way to this forum, and found the post about booting with "linux rescue", chroot /mnt/sysimage and grub-install /dev/hda. Tried that and got a message saying /dev/hdb1 (where FC4 is installed) did not have a valid BIOS file (sorry, again I don't remember exactly what the message said, but it was something along those lines. It definitely mentioned /dev/hdb1 and BIOS). Now I'm really stuck.
there should be a file in your /boot/grub directory called device.map, my file contains the below. There is some grub command which will reset this file. I however never had to do this. It tells grub where your devices are mapped to. What does your file read? (/boot/grub/device.map) cat device.map # this device map was generated by anaconda (fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/hda
During FC4 install I created 3 partitions on my drive, one for /boot, one for swap and the rest for /. I formatted all partitions prior to each install.
This sounds acceptable as a layout.
My PC has an AMD2200+, 512Mb, primary drive is 40Gb (Win) and slave is 10Gb (Linux). All help very gratefully received!
Good luck with your adventure through Linux distros. Jim
Ian
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
Jim Cornette wrote:
Ian wrote:
Hi All, I'm not a Linux guru but I would like to use Linux as an alternative to Windoze wherever possible. To that end I've tried installing a few different distros, the latest being FC4, but I appear to have screwed something up with grub. Sorry, but it's a long story so please bear with me. I had Mandrake 10.0 Official installed on the second hard drive in my PC (XP is on the primary drive) which used lilo (could never get grub to work) as it's bootloader, and all was fine. Then I tried FC4, which installed grub and again everything seemed to work okay, but I couldn't get FC4 to recognise my Windoze drive. Tried mounting the drive as ntfs but it told me ntfs was not a valid file type.
Fedora does not come with ntfs modules. you have to install the modules from a source which provides rpms for your distro and kernel version/type. If you are talking about an entry in grub to boot windows, it ought to be visible if you press any key when grub starts loading. you should be able to arrow up or down to your preferred OS to load.
A bit of RTFMing told me that the valid file types had to live in a specific file (the name of which I've forgotten now, but you probably know it). ntfs wasn't in there so I added it. Now the mount command told me /hda had an invalid or unrecognisable header. At that point I gave up.
There seems to be some modules for FC4 at this website. Grab the one for your kernel/type and install it using the rpm program.
http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/rpm/fedora4.html
Finally found my way to this forum, and found the post about booting with "linux rescue", chroot /mnt/sysimage and grub-install /dev/hda. Tried that and got a message saying /dev/hdb1 (where FC4 is installed) did not have a valid BIOS file (sorry, again I don't remember exactly what the message said, but it was something along those lines. It definitely mentioned /dev/hdb1 and BIOS). Now I'm really stuck.
there should be a file in your /boot/grub directory called device.map, my file contains the below. There is some grub command which will reset this file. I however never had to do this. It tells grub where your devices are mapped to. What does your file read? (/boot/grub/device.map) cat device.map # this device map was generated by anaconda (fd0) /dev/fd0 (hd0) /dev/hda
During FC4 install I created 3 partitions on my drive, one for /boot, one for swap and the rest for /. I formatted all partitions prior to each install.
This sounds acceptable as a layout.
My PC has an AMD2200+, 512Mb, primary drive is 40Gb (Win) and slave is 10Gb (Linux). All help very gratefully received!
Good luck with your adventure through Linux distros. Jim
Ian
Ian wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr" XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr. To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
Jim
On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:59:02AM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
Ian wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr" XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr. To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
Jim
Another way to do it is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1 bc=446 or: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 bc=1
But I don't understand why you can't boot with linux rescue, chroot to your FC4 root partition (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and run grub-install
Obviously hda might be hdb or sda, etc.
Thanks for the tips, I will try them. As I mentioned in my original email, when I tried fixmbr in recovery console under XP I got so many dire warnings about doing it I chickened out. I can't afford to lose my Windows disk. (At the very least I'll have to do some backups first. Maybe I should do that anyway... ;-) ). I'll try the linux rescue, chroot /mnt/sysimage thing again (I've installed Mandrake again but will install FC4 again to try it) but last time it told me there was a problem with /hdb1 not having a valid BIOS something, I will take note of the full message next time. I know Windows is on /hda, /boot was on /hdb1, swap was on /hdb5 and root (/) was on /hdb6. I think that's how it went anyway. I'll do it again and make notes this time. I know it's difficult to diagnose problems with sketchy information. Thanks again, Ian
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:59:02AM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
Ian wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr" XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr. To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
Jim
Another way to do it is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1 bc=446 or: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 bc=1
But I don't understand why you can't boot with linux rescue, chroot to your FC4 root partition (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and run grub-install
Obviously hda might be hdb or sda, etc.
Thanks guys, Found an old Win98 boot floppy and booted with that. fdisk /mbr reset the mbr to just boot straight into Windows, so that worked a treat. Reinstalled FC4 again. First attempt ended with an error at the end of the data collection phase and before it actually started installing anything. The error was "Error informing the kernel about modifications to partition /dev/hdb1 - Device or resource busy. This means Linux won't know about any changes you made to /dev/hdb1 until you reboot - so you shouldn't mount it or use it in any way before rebooting". I had a choice of ignore or cancel, so clicked cancel, and it displayed another error message saying basically the same thing and telling me I had to reboot. Clicked that and the PC rebooted. Tried again but this time selected manually partition instead of automatic. Dunno why, but it is using something called LVM for my swap and root partitions. The /boot partition doesn't seem to be in LVM. When the partition screen comes up this is what I see: VolGroup00 LogVol00 / ext3 8608 LogVol01 swap 1024 /dev/hda /dev/hda1 ntfs 38154 /dev/hdb /dev/hdb1 /boot ext3 102 /dev/hdb2 VolGroup00 LVM PV 9664
This time I ensured it would format all partitions, and the install completed successfully. On reboot the PC booted straight into Windows, no grub screen, no nuthin'. Rebooted from FC4 CD1 and entered "linux rescue", then chroot /mnt/sysimage, then grub-install /dev/hda. The response was "/dev/hdb1 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive". I don't get it. I can successfully install Ubuntu and Mandrake, but not FC4. Ubuntu successfully installs grub (Mandrake installs lilo). But the thing I really don't get is that I have successfully installed FC4 before, grub and everything, not a problem. It's only since I started mucking around with Ubuntu that I can't install FC4 any more. Would it be a smart idea to change my bios to boot from my slave, (i.e. hdb), instead of the primary, and tell FC4 to install grub to hdb instead of hda? Can I even do that? Alternatively, can I set up a boot floppy for FC4? I think it might be easier than trying to sort out this conundrum... Thanks, Ian
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:59:02AM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
Ian wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr" XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr. To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
Jim
Another way to do it is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1 bc=446 or: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 bc=1
But I don't understand why you can't boot with linux rescue, chroot to your FC4 root partition (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and run grub-install
Obviously hda might be hdb or sda, etc.
Well, you wouldn't adam and eve it. After writing that last email I got to thinking about LVM and how I had no idea what it was and didn't specify it anywhere. It was also the only thing that survived the many reformats of the partitions. So I deleted it all and repartitioned with "normal" partitions. And Voila! FC4 installed with absolutely no problem, installed grub, everything. It all works! Hallelujah! Thanks so much for all your help and advice, much appreciated. Ian
akonstam@trinity.edu wrote:
On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:59:02AM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
Ian wrote:
Hi Jim, Thanks for the response. My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call it stuck between a rock and a hard place... Ian
An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr" XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr. To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
Jim
Another way to do it is: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1 bc=446 or: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 bc=1
But I don't understand why you can't boot with linux rescue, chroot to your FC4 root partition (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and run grub-install
Obviously hda might be hdb or sda, etc.
Ian wrote:
Well, you wouldn't adam and eve it. After writing that last email I got to thinking about LVM and how I had no idea what it was and didn't specify it anywhere. It was also the only thing that survived the many reformats of the partitions. So I deleted it all and repartitioned with "normal" partitions. And Voila! FC4 installed with absolutely no problem, installed grub, everything. It all works! Hallelujah! Thanks so much for all your help and advice, much appreciated. Ian
I guess that the bottom line here is: Don't use LVM.
When I recently installed FC4 on a machine, it automatically created LVM. That should not (IMO) be the default.
Mike
Le lundi 19 septembre 2005 à 11:59 +1000, Ian a écrit :
Hi All, I'm not a Linux guru but I would like to use Linux as an alternative to Windoze wherever possible. To that end I've tried installing a few deach install. My PC has an AMD2200+, 512Mb, primary drive is 40Gb (Win) and slave is 10Gb (Linux). All help very gratefully received! Ian
It happened to me when I've used to install WinXP on a disk other than C:!
Hope it helps!
what do you want to do exactly? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Horacio R. Ferrero" horace.linux@noos.fr To: "For users of Fedora Core releases" fedora-list@redhat.com Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:35 PM Subject: Re: Grub doesn't install
Le lundi 19 septembre 2005 à 11:59 +1000, Ian a écrit :
Hi All, I'm not a Linux guru but I would like to use Linux as an alternative to Windoze wherever possible. To that end I've tried installing a few deach install. My PC has an AMD2200+, 512Mb, primary drive is 40Gb (Win) and slave is 10Gb (Linux). All help very gratefully received! Ian
It happened to me when I've used to install WinXP on a disk other than C:!
Hope it helps!
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