booting with wrong grub.conf

Jim Cornette fc-cornette at insight.rr.com
Sat Dec 11 14:39:50 UTC 2004


John Cox wrote:
> I have an extra partition that I use to test other distributions. My
> normal procedure is install but not let the new OS install grub. I
> then manually modify my FC3 grub.conf. I didn't do this with an
> installation of caos so now when I boot I'm using the grub.conf on the
> caos partition. I don't want this as FC3 is my main OS. I tried using
> FC3 rescue to reinstall grub to /dev/hda but that doesn't do the job. 
> So what determines which grub.conf the system uses and how do I change
> that?
> Thanks.
> John
> 

When you use the rescue CD, you should have choices for your detected 
installations. This might only work for Fedora installations for detection.
What you need to do is to chroot /mnt/sysimage into your detcted and 
selected OS and then make sure that your /boot partition is mounted. 
After you know that your boot partition is mounted, you should be able 
to run grub-install /dev/hda and the Fedora installation should be 
installed into the MBR as desired.

Another way would be to copy the boot stanza from the fedora 
/boot/grub/grub.conf file and paste this into the caos installation. 
Once you add this information into the caos grub file, you can reboot 
into the Fedora installation and run the grub-install /dev/hda command. 
This should boot into Fedora Grub on your next boot.

If you have the same boot partition for all installations, the 
information was probably overwritten. Hopefully, there is a backup of 
the earlier grub.conf file.

I'm not familiar with CAOS or with how you set up the partition scheme. 
This might give you some ideas.

grub can be installed to the primary partitions for many different 
installations that have their own boot partition or within the mbr. You 
might need to read the info and man pages for specifics related to your 
scheme used on your system.

Jim

-- 
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
		-- Niels Bohr




More information about the fedora-list mailing list