bootloader blues
Tim
ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Fri Apr 14 11:09:11 UTC 2006
On Thu, 2006-04-13 at 14:15 -0500, Jimmy Montague wrote:
> Sorry: I can't decipher the MAN page.
I found "man grub" to be next to useless on each Fedora Core Linux that
I've tried, but the *full* manual is available as an info file:
info grub
> I don't know how to copy bootloader to the MBR of the Windoze drive..
>
> When I ran fdisk -l, as you suggested, here is the result:
>
> Disk/dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40027029504 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track/ 4866 cylinders
> units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Disk/dev/hdb: 40.0 GB, 40027029504 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track/ 4866 cylinders
> units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> dev/hda1 * 1 4865 39078081 7 HPFS/NTFS
>
> dev/hdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
> dev/hdb2 14 4866 38981722+ 8e Linux LVM
Looks the same as a friend's foray into FC5, and he had a similar
problem (after installation, it booted straight into Windows, without
any GRUB menu, despite being told to install GRUB to the MBR of the
first, Windows, drive during the installation routine). I think this
(below) is the procedure I used to fix things up. It's a while since I
did it, and didn't note precisely what I did.
1. Booted a rescue disc.
2. Entered the command "grub" (we're now are in a command line
interface shell for GRUB). I may have had to chroot into
the /mnt/sysimage, but I cannot remember. You'll soon know if
you have to, if there's no response to the grub command.
3. Entered "root (hd1,0)" (setting the boot drive and partition for
where most of GRUB, and the system kernel files
are: /dev/hdb1).
4. Entered "find (hd1,0)/grub/stage1" (the first file GRUB uses to
boot up from). (This step may not be necessary, but should
demonstrate that the required file is where it's needed.)
5. Entered "setup (hd0)" (to install the bootloader to the drive my
system BIOS boots up).
6. Entered "quit" (to properly exit from the GRUB command line
interface shell).
(Example commands shown between the quotes, just type what's inside
them, don't also type the quotes.)
If all goes well, you'll install the first stage of GRUB into the MBR of
the drive your motherboard boots from, and set up the other stages of
GRUB (and its menu) correctly in the boot partition of your Linux drive.
Now, when you boot, you use GRUB to determine which system to boot up.
Alternatively, some people use the Windows bootloader, adding in the
files needed for it to switch over to the other (Linux) drive. I've not
tried that, so can't offer any tips.
--
(Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.)
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