cannot reinstall grub after windows xp messes up partitions

[Paul Howarth]

On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 18:19 -0800, Evan White wrote:
> I'm running a Windows XP / FC3 dual-boot system on a
> Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop and it was running fine. 
> Here's the partitions from fdisk:
> 
> device     start end   Blocks    Id   System
> /dev/sda1  1     4462  35840983  7    HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda2  4463  8287  30724312  f    W95 Ext'd (LBA)
> /dev/sda3  8288  8300  104422    93   Amoeba
> /dev/sda4  8301  12161 31013482  8e   Linux LVM
> /dev/sda5  4463  8287  30724281  b    W95 FAT32
> 
> Inside the LVM, there is a 2 GB Swap and the rest is
> /.
> 
> I noticed that the Linux parition showed up in Windows
> as F: and was concerned that Windows would somehow
> corrupt the partition if it was mounted, so I looked
> for ways to hide that partition from Windows.  I ended
> up changing my grub.conf file to include this line in
> the Windows section: hide (hd0,2)
> 
> In hindsight, perhaps it should have been (hd0,3).
> 
> Anyways, upon reboot into Windows, I could tell that
> Windows did something before I logging me in.  It went
> to that light blue screen that it uses for scandisk
> for about 2 seconds, then it logged me in.  The F:
> drive was still visible, and when I rebooted, I got
> the following error:
> 
> GRUB Loading stage1.5
> 
> GRUB loading, please wait...
> Error 17
> 
> 
> Well I've seen this before, so I booted to my FC3 disk
> and typed "linux rescue"  then "chroot /mnt/sysimage".
>  I checked my grub.conf, which reads:
> 
> title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.770_FC3)
> 
> 
> Then I ran "grub-install /dev/sda" and got this:
> 
> The file /boot/grub/stage1 was not read correctly.
> 
> I didn't know what that was all about, but after
> looking around, I found people suggesting the
> following:
> 
> #>grub
> grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
> 
> To which I received:
> 
> Error 15: File not found
> 
> I am, however, about to browse to /boot/grub/ and I
> can see the stage1 file.  But for some reason grub
> can't find it.  Someone suggested using grub.img, but
> I don't have a floppy drive.  I do, however, have
> network/internet access still enable thru FC3 rescue
> mode. 
> 
> Questions:
> 
> Firstly, is the hide command the best way to keep
> Windows away from the Linux partition?  What is the
> best way?
> 
> Secondly, how do I reinstall grub successfully?

My guess is that the partition /dev/sda3 is actually your Linux /boot
partition, since it's about the right size and you have no other grub-
readable Linux partitions. I would use fdisk and change the partition
type to "Linux" instead of "Amoeba". Grub might then be happier to look
there for /grub/stage1 (the leading /boot is not required since you have
a separate /boot partition).

As for hiding the Linux partition(s) from Windows, can't you use "Disk
Management" and tell Windows not to assign a drive letter to that
partition?

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>