Hosed Grub with the push of a button

[max]

Jim Webb wrote:
> max wrote:
>> I hosed grub. I need to fix it. I booted from fedora rescue. I chroot 
>> to /mnt/sysimage. All good. I tried :
>>
>> grub-install  /dev/sda
>>
>> The  file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
>>
>> tried:
>>
>> grub-install /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
>>
>> The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
>>
>>
>> tried:
>>
>> cd /boot/grub
>>
>> cat stage1
>>
>> output maybe human readable by some humans but not this one.
>>
>> So far I can still see all the user files so I can backup and 
>> reinstall but that wouldn't teach me anything.
>> All suggestions/insults/how-to's welcome.
>>
>> Max
>>
> Max,
> I looked this up on Red Hat's KBase:
> 
> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/en-US/RHEL510/Installation_Guide/s2-rescuemode-boot-reinstall-bootloader.html 
> 
> 
> Hope this helps,
> Jim
> 

Thanks for the link but i had tried that and it didn't work. The 
following explains why but I don't see an easy way to do it, i'll do it 
the hard way , its the only option left, I need some help on best method 
or whether its even possible.



 From rescue cd, l let me outline what i see like a terminal :

sh-3.2# chroot /mnt/sysimage
sh-3.2# cd boot
sh-3.2#ls
boot    grub (there shouldn't another boot directory should there?Also 
no config files, no initrd, no system map,no vmlinuz, will copying 		 
from another f8 be good enough to restore these, i would guess yes but I 
am getting hungry so i'll deal with that first, i 		 
should have noticed these missing yesterday but it was late etc....rest 
of this probably doesn't matter but for the     				sake  of 
thoroughness i'll go through everything anyway)

sh-3.2#cd grub
sh-3.2#ls
device.map		ffs_stage1_5		reiserfs_stage1_5	vstafs_stage1_5
device.map.backup  iso9660_stage1_5	stage1				xfs_stage1_5	
e2fs_stage1_5		jfs_stage1_5		stage2				
fat_stage1_5		minix_stage1_5		ufs2_stage1_5

I notice as I type this that menu.lst, menu.lst.backup, and 
splash.xpm.gz are all missing, i'm not quite sure how to regenerate 
them, I could copy them from my other box but menu.lst won't be 
identical.....i'll have to think about that one but without missing 
files in boot what does it matter?Missing files would explain why grub 
says it can't find stage1, presumably it needs the missing files in 
/boot to locate stage1

If you remember I noticed another boot directory inside /boot

sh-3.2#cd /
sh-3.2#cd boot
sh-3.2#ls
boot 	grub
sh-3.2#cd boot
sh-3.2#ls
grub

sh-3.2#cd grub
sh-3.2#ls

device.map		ffs_stage1_5		reiserfs_stage1_5	vstafs_stage1_5
				  iso9660_stage1_5	stage1				xfs_stage1_5	
e2fs_stage1_5		jfs_stage1_5		stage2				
fat_stage1_5		minix_stage1_5		ufs2_stage1_5


It is the same as the contents of the other grub directory minus the 
device.map.backup. I don't think this directory should exist at all but 
it may have been created by my earlier attempts to fix grub. While I 
don't think it should be there, i don't think it should cause a problem 
because I never told grub to look in /boot/boot/grub , without the 
missing files from /boot i think i'm screwed. Will copying these from 
another f8 do the trick? I think that is the question of the moment. I 
am thinking yes because these boxes are updated to the same point(i've 
complied a kernel or two so i think it will work) but how much trouble 
will it cause? Well I'm off to dinner. All suggestion, insults, etc

Thanks

Max