cannot reinstall grub after windows xp messes up partitions

Evan White evwhite at yahoo.com
Sun Apr 3 19:18:42 UTC 2005


--- Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 18:19 -0800, Evan White wrote:
> > I'm running a Windows XP / FC3 dual-boot system on
> a
> > Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop and it was running fine.
> 
> > Here's the partitions from fdisk:
> > 
> > device     start end   Blocks    Id   System
> > /dev/sda1  1     4462  35840983  7    HPFS/NTFS
> > /dev/sda2  4463  8287  30724312  f    W95 Ext'd
> (LBA)
> > /dev/sda3  8288  8300  104422    93   Amoeba
> > /dev/sda4  8301  12161 31013482  8e   Linux LVM
> > /dev/sda5  4463  8287  30724281  b    W95 FAT32
> > 
> > Inside the LVM, there is a 2 GB Swap and the rest
> is
> > /.
> > 
> > I noticed that the Linux parition showed up in
> Windows
> > as F: and was concerned that Windows would somehow
> > corrupt the partition if it was mounted, so I
> looked
> > for ways to hide that partition from Windows.  I
> ended
> > up changing my grub.conf file to include this line
> in
> > the Windows section: hide (hd0,2)
> > 
> > In hindsight, perhaps it should have been (hd0,3).
> > 
> > Anyways, upon reboot into Windows, I could tell
> that
> > Windows did something before I logging me in.  It
> went
> > to that light blue screen that it uses for
> scandisk
> > for about 2 seconds, then it logged me in.  The F:
> > drive was still visible, and when I rebooted, I
> got
> > the following error:
> > 
> > GRUB Loading stage1.5
> > 
> > GRUB loading, please wait...
> > Error 17
> > 
> > 
> > Well I've seen this before, so I booted to my FC3
> disk
> > and typed "linux rescue"  then "chroot
> /mnt/sysimage".
> >  I checked my grub.conf, which reads:
> > 
> > title Fedora Core (2.6.10-1.770_FC3)
> > 
> > 
> > Then I ran "grub-install /dev/sda" and got this:
> > 
> > The file /boot/grub/stage1 was not read correctly.
> > 
> > I didn't know what that was all about, but after
> > looking around, I found people suggesting the
> > following:
> > 
> > #>grub
> > grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
> > 
> > To which I received:
> > 
> > Error 15: File not found
> > 
> > I am, however, about to browse to /boot/grub/ and
> I
> > can see the stage1 file.  But for some reason grub
> > can't find it.  Someone suggested using grub.img,
> but
> > I don't have a floppy drive.  I do, however, have
> > network/internet access still enable thru FC3
> rescue
> > mode. 
> > 
> > Questions:
> > 
> > Firstly, is the hide command the best way to keep
> > Windows away from the Linux partition?  What is
> the
> > best way?
> > 
> > Secondly, how do I reinstall grub successfully?
> 
> My guess is that the partition /dev/sda3 is actually
> your Linux /boot
> partition, since it's about the right size and you
> have no other grub-
> readable Linux partitions. I would use fdisk and
> change the partition
> type to "Linux" instead of "Amoeba". Grub might then
> be happier to look
> there for /grub/stage1 (the leading /boot is not
> required since you have
> a separate /boot partition).
> 
> As for hiding the Linux partition(s) from Windows,
> can't you use "Disk
> Management" and tell Windows not to assign a drive
> letter to that
> partition?
> 
> Paul.
> -- 
> Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>
> 

The problem was fixed by changing the partition type
to "Linux" (type 83).  I then was able to reinstall
using "grub-install /dev/sda".

Thanks for all the help!.

~Evan

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 




More information about the fedora-list mailing list