Install of FC4T3 fails to update MBR in Windows dual boot env.

[akonstam at trinity.edu]

On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 02:17:04PM +1000, Srihari Vijayaraghavan wrote:
> A friend of mine had this happened to him:
> 
> ##### starts here #####
> My PC has 3 installs of Windows XP SP2 accessed via
> Windows boot manager.
> When I install FC4T3 onto 10 gig of empty space on 2nd
> hard drive, the install would complete successfully,
> but on reboot the windows boot manager is still there,
> with no sign of grub. I have installed 4 times with
> same result.
> ##### Ends here #####
> 
> It seems as if anaconda 'forgot' to write the Grub on
> the MBR of the Primary master IDE hard drive. Does
> this sound like a known bug? Do you need more
> information?
> 
> We are happy to raise a bug in bugzilla. A quick
> search on bugzilla did not reveal a similar bug.
> 
Well first we did exactly the same thing and it worked with Linux and
Windows both booting. I would agree we need toi be sure that the grub
was installed on the right drive:
In any case at this point you can use the rescue disk to install grub
in the MBR. 

Just in case the process is as follows:
Boot the rescue disk and at some point it will identify you linux and
mount it on /mnt/sysimage. Then run a : chroot /mnt/sysimage
Check on your /boot/grub/grub.conf to see if it is correct. Both the
linux and Windows can be booted from the grub you will install in MBR.
Then to do the installation you can do it one of two ways:
1. grub-install /dev/hda

2. The series of commands:
grub
grub> root (hd0,4)   <---  the 4 must be changed if your linuxis on a
				different partition.
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit
Although the first option is easier to type the second works more
consistently. If you don't know how to set up windows in grub it is
with the lines:
title windows
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
       chainloader +1

Now if the MBR boot sectors are stubborn and will no be erased you can
remove them by the command:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1
-- 

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Aaron Konstam
Computer Science
Trinity University
One Trinity Place.
San Antonio, TX 78212-7200

telephone: (210)-999-7484
email:akonstam at trinity.edu