F8/F9 Multiboot question

[Tim]

On Sun, 2008-08-03 at 15:56 -0700, Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
> What is the command for installing the "MBR" and grub into each
> of their respective partitions?
> 
> I tried: grub-install --recheck /dev/sdc1, and likewise for /dev/sdc2
> and /dev/sdc3 but nothing happens.

I've never bothered with grub-install, other than the one time it didn't
do what it was supposed to.  After that I decided not to bother with it
again.  I issue the real commands directly:

The grub command to enter a GRUB shell.  
The root command to tell GRUB where /boot will be (and GRUB's root is
held).  
The find command to check that GRUB can find the files it needs.  
The setup command to setup which drive MBR to write to, or which
partition.
And the quit command to write all the changes and exit.  

Pasting of a session is below, the GRUB input prompts are beside
"grub>", the rest is output.

[root at localhost ~]# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.


    GNU GRUB  version 0.97  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the
possible
   completions of a device/filename.]
grub> root (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
grub>  find /grub/stage1
find /grub/stage1
 (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  23 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+23 p
(hd0,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
quit
[root at localhost ~]#

My set of examples picks my first boot partition (the root command), and
writes back to the disc's MBR (the setup command).  You'd change the
root and setup parameters to suit each installation, to install GRUB
"stage ones" into each boot partition.  In your case, you'd pick the
same drive and partition for the root and setup commands.

By the way, grub-install is just a script.  You can read it and see how
it works, if you really want to.

> Since I had copies of /boot for f8 and f9 I simply copied f8's boot
> files into /dev/sdc2 and f9's boot files into /dev/sdc3 but
> for /dev/sdc1 (boot-sys), I copied f8's boot files into /dev/sdc1,
> removed initd*, vm*, and System*, edited grub/grub.conf with the
> chain-loaders like you said.

Hmm, I don't know exactly what you mean by "boot files".  Each /boot
partition would have that OS's kernel files, and a grub sub-directory
for that installation's GRUB files (menus, stage loaders, etc.).  There
shouldn't be any need to copy things about.

Inside /boot/grub:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     63 2008-06-01 01:39 device.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11768 2008-06-01 01:39 e2fs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11528 2008-06-01 01:39 fat_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10776 2008-06-01 01:39 ffs_stage1_5
-rw------- 1 root root   1700 2008-07-27 16:47 grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10768 2008-06-01 01:39 iso9660_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  12440 2008-06-01 01:39 jfs_stage1_5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     11 2008-06-01 01:39 menu.lst -> ./grub.conf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10984 2008-06-01 01:39 minix_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  83780 2008-06-30 12:22 mixer-cropped.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  85014 2008-06-30 12:22 mixer.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13376 2008-06-01 01:39 reiserfs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  66003 2008-04-12 05:32 splash.xpm.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    512 2008-06-01 01:39 stage1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 110532 2008-06-01 01:39 stage2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  11040 2008-06-01 01:39 ufs2_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  10376 2008-06-01 01:39 vstafs_stage1_5
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13016 2008-06-01 01:39 xfs_stage1_5

> But I am at loss to figure out how to get each of the 3 partitions
> with it's own "MBR".

Terminology problem...  MBR is Master Boot Record, there's only one of
them per disc.  Initial stages of GRUB can be put in the disc MBR, or at
the beginning of individual partitions (not a MBR, but something
similar, and a mental blank strikes me as to its proper name).

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.25.11-97.fc9.i686

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