Grub question (Ahem....help! Now it just says 'GRUB')

[Bob McClure Jr]

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 05:25:00PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote:
> > > I'm confused about this.
> > >
> > > 1) I thought grub was in /dev/hda5.
> > 
> > grub.conf is.
> 
> OK, I now see Imissed on important piece of info. SC7 was installed in
> the MBR, and grub was installed (I think) on hda5. The boot process is
> to boot SC7, and then from SC7 choose Windows or Linux. If Linux, then
> it jumps to grub and I get the grub choices.

I figured you'd have to complicate things. :-)

> > > /dev/hda5 is marked as bootable, not hda7.
> > 
> > I think that's irrelevant to GRUB.  Only your BIOS cares about that.
> > 
> > > The machine has been booted since I moved hda5 and hda6. Why
> > > did moving hda7 make any difference at all?
> > 
> > I don't know.  Rick probably does.
> > 
> > > 2) What do I do to get the machine booting again?
> > 
> > I'd say to boot with your distro disk #1 into rescue mode, let it
> > mount your system on /mnt/sysimage, pop out the CD, and then
> > 
> >  chroot /mnt/sysimage
> >  grub-install /dev/hda
> 
> This, I think, would put grub in the MBR, wouldn't it?

Yes.  I've seen precious few reasons not to.  Yours may be one.

> If so that's
> not what I want to do, or at least I think I don't. I still want to
> boot SC7 first. How about
> 
> grub-install /dev/hda5? (Or should it be hda7 since that's the
> partition that caused the problem when I moved it. That'swhat I'm
> confused about. What did grub really put on /dev/hda7?
> 
> Or possibly grub really is on /dev/hda5, which moved successfully, but
> then moving hda7 caused grb to get confused? Does grub look at the
> actual location that the root partition exists at, or does it just use
> the partition number. (What I thought...)

That's beyond my level of expertise.  Rick Stevens can chime in here.
The most important thing I can guess is that GRUB should be installed
on whichever partition is marked bootable.  (Yeah, now it matters, I
think.)  I still can't say which partition it should be.  The Fine
Manual

http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/ref-guide/s1-grub-installing.html

addresses only installing to the MBR.  But by extrapolating from the
rest of the documentation, if I had to bet, I'd say install to the
partition that is mounted on /boot.  IIRC, that makes it /dev/hda5,
and that correlates with everything else you've said.

> >  exit
> >  exit
> > 
> > That should fix it.
> > 
> > > I've loaded Knoppix and all the partitions are there. They are in teh
> > > same order they were in before. All the data appears top still be
> > > there, although you cannot see grub so that part I'm not sure about.
> > >
> > > Guru level guidance warmly appreciated.
> > 
> > I don't qualify.  Sorry.  But let us know if that works.  I'm still
> > learning.
> > 
> > > thanks,
> > > Mark
> > 
> > Cheers,
> 
> Thanks Bob!

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure at earthlink.net  http://www.bobcatos.com
Grace happens.