Alternative booting

David Krings ramons at gmx.net
Sat Aug 18 19:26:14 UTC 2007


Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> Sure - tell it that /boot/grub is on hd1,# where # is the correct
> partition on the second drive. The drive number has to match the
> BIOS mapping, because BIOS calls are used. The thing is, if the BIOS
> drive mapping is changed after grub is installed, you have to tell
> grub about it. The later Windows boot loaders have the same problem
> - install XP to the second drive on second drive on a system, and
> move it to a new system, or install it on the first drive, and then
> change that drive to the slave, and add a master. The problem is you
> only have so much space for the first stage boot loader, and both
> the first stage and second stage boot loaders use the BIOS to load
> things.
> 
> Now, if your Linux drive is set as the boot device, and you
> chainload to boot Windows, then I don't understand why you are
> running into problems. On the other hand, if you are using booting
>>from the RAID array with Windows on it, you have to tell grub about
> the changed BIOS mapping. It is best to do this before installing
> grub to the MBR of the RAID array.
> 
> Mikkel
> 

OK, two things: I did not change any BIOS mapping or drive or boot 
sequence. I install F7, GRUB installs fine, GRUB boots fine, I install 
updates => GRUB is broken beyond repair.
I did remove drives in order to get F7 to install at all and yes, I 
added those drives on later, BUT even after doing that GRUB booted fine. 
It is just that after updating the system the whole shebang comes apart 
for no good reason. GRUB just ought to continue booting from the same 
drive and same partition it booted from before...and it just doesn't do 
that.

Also, I do not have plain simple IDE drives, but a RAID array on the 
nVidia SATA controller that I want to use to boot from. In that case, 
when I specify a hdx device it will write the boot loader to only one of 
the drives of the mirror array, which doesn't do any good.

Something isn't working right with GRUB and I am tired of reinstalling 
F7 over and over again (three times is enough), but I still want to use 
a Linux system, which does work as seen. I just don't have any 
confidence in GRUB doing a good job and thus I ask for any alternatives.

Anyone can tell me of any alternatives?

David




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