Grub? Grub2?

[Jeffrey Ross]

This is a system that was upgraded from F15 to F16 via Yum, how can I do:

1) confirm which version of grub was used to boot the system
2) re-install the boot record (MBR?) for the version of grub I'm running
onto a replacement drive?

Thanks, Jeff

[Scott Doty]

On 02/23/2012 10:26 AM, Jeffrey Ross wrote:
> This is a system that was upgraded from F15 to F16 via Yum, how can I do:
> confirm which version of grub was used to boot the system

# file - < /dev/sda

The dash is important -- tells file(1) to read from stdin.  Example:

_[/root]_(root@atom)_
# file - < /dev/sda
/dev/stdin: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 
0x3, boot drive 0x80, 1st sector stage2 0x138800, GRUB version 0.94; 
partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 1572864 
sectors; partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 8, startsector 1574912, 1048576 
sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 77, startsector 2623488, 
56002560 sectors, code offset 0x48
> re-install the boot record (MBR?) for the version of grub I'm running
>
> onto a replacement drive?

Take a look at grub2-install or grub-install, depending on what you have 
installed.

-Scott

[Jeffrey Ross]

> On 02/23/2012 10:26 AM, Jeffrey Ross wrote:
> > This is a system that was upgraded from F15 to F16 via Yum, how can I
> > do:
> > confirm which version of grub was used to boot the system
>
> # file - < /dev/sda
>
> The dash is important -- tells file(1) to read from stdin.  Example:
>
> _[/root]_(root@atom)_
> # file - < /dev/sda
> /dev/stdin: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version
> 0x3, boot drive 0x80, 1st sector stage2 0x138800, GRUB version 0.94;
> partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 1572864
> sectors; partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 8, startsector 1574912, 1048576
> sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 77, startsector 2623488,
> 56002560 sectors, code offset 0x48
> > re-install the boot record (MBR?) for the version of grub I'm running
> >
> > onto a replacement drive?
>
> Take a look at grub2-install or grub-install, depending on what you have
> installed.
>
> -Scott

Thanks... system responded:

/dev/stdin: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 0x3,
boot drive 0x80, 1st sector stage2 0x3c0e298, GRUB version 0.94; partition
1: ID=0xfd, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 16580608 sectors; partition 2:
ID=0xfd, starthead 254, startsector 16582656, 15360000 sectors; partition
3: ID=0xfd, starthead 254, startsector 31942656, 15360000 sectors;
partition 4: ID=0x5, starthead 254, startsector 47302656, 274368512
sectors, code offset 0x48

which means it was GRUB not GRUB2, and a reinstall should simply be
"grub-install /dev/sdX"

However the binaries for grub 0.94 are not installed on the system but
rather the binaries for grub2 (1.99) and yum doesn't seem to want to let
me install the older version of grub.

Last time I tried to upgrade I ran into problems so I'm hesitant to
upgrade to grub2

I think my problem was /boot and / are on raid 1 partitions, root is on a
raid partition with a superblock of 1.1, /boot is on a superblock of 0.90

I need to get grub reinstalled on /dev/sdb

Thanks, Jeff

[T.C. Hollingsworth]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Jeffrey Ross  wrote:
> Thanks... system responded:

<snip output>
> which means it was GRUB not GRUB2, and a reinstall should simply be
> "grub-install /dev/sdX"
>
> However the binaries for grub 0.94 are not installed on the system but
> rather the binaries for grub2 (1.99) and yum doesn't seem to want to let
> me install the older version of grub.

That's because grub2 obsoletes grub.  You'll have to uninstall grub2
and manually install the GRUB1 RPM:
i686: http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/16/Everything/i3...
x86_64: http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/16/Everything/x8...
> Last time I tried to upgrade I ran into problems so I'm hesitant to
> upgrade to grub2
>
> I think my problem was /boot and / are on raid 1 partitions, root is on a
> raid partition with a superblock of 1.1, /boot is on a superblock of 0.90
>
> I need to get grub reinstalled on /dev/sdb
>
> Thanks, Jeff

-T.C.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Thu, 2012-02-23 at 10:51 -0800, Scott Doty wrote:
> On 02/23/2012 10:26 AM, Jeffrey Ross wrote:
> > This is a system that was upgraded from F15 to F16 via Yum, how can I do:
> > confirm which version of grub was used to boot the system
>
> # file - < /dev/sda
>
> The dash is important -- tells file(1) to read from stdin.  Example:
>
> _[/root]_(root@atom)_
> # file - < /dev/sda
> /dev/stdin: x86 boot sector; GRand Unified Bootloader, stage1 version 
> 0x3, boot drive 0x80, 1st sector stage2 0x138800, GRUB version 0.94; 
> partition 1: ID=0x83, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 1572864 
> sectors; partition 2: ID=0x82, starthead 8, startsector 1574912, 1048576 
> sectors; partition 3: ID=0x83, starthead 77, startsector 2623488, 
> 56002560 sectors, code offset 0x48
> > re-install the boot record (MBR?) for the version of grub I'm running
> >
> > onto a replacement drive?
>
> Take a look at grub2-install or grub-install, depending on what you have 
> installed.
>
> -Scott

Now I wonder. When I run : file - < /dev/sda
The output dose not have the string: GRUB version 0.94
but in /boot/grub2 there is a grub.cfg and there is no grub.conf
in /boot/grub nor is there a grub-install.

So what am I to conclude about booting?

[T.C. Hollingsworth]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Aaron Konstam  wrote:
> Now I wonder. When I run : file - < /dev/sda
> The output dose not have the string: GRUB version 0.94
> but in /boot/grub2 there is a grub.cfg and there is no grub.conf
> in /boot/grub nor is there a grub-install.
>
> So what am I to conclude about booting?

Apparently, `file` doesn't recognize GRUB2 yet, as it outputs no
information about what sort of bootloader is installed.  My system,
which I'm absolutely certain uses GRUB2 (it says so in the menu ;-),
says:

/dev/stdin: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x83, starthead 32,
startsector 2048, 1024000 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x7, active,
starthead 221, startsector 1026048, 81920000 sectors; partition 3:
ID=0x8e, starthead 254, startsector 82946048, 1167316992 sectors, code
offset 0x63, OEM-ID "      м", Bytes/sector 190, sectors/cluster 124,
reserved sectors 191, FATs 6, root entries 185, sectors 64514 (volumes
<=32 MB) , Media descriptor 0xf3, sectors/FAT 20644, heads 6, hidden
sectors 309755, sectors 2147991229 (volumes > 32 MB) , physical drive
0x7e, dos < 4.0 BootSector (0x0)

So, no info probably means GRUB2.

-T.C.