[NTLUG:Discuss] Boot Loader

[George Lass]

George Lass wrote:
> 
> > >>
> > > What he means is to open a terminal, su to root, and type the command:
> > > grub --install
> > >
> > > It's just that simple.
> 
> In order to verify what needs to be in my grub.conf file I
> installed grub on a floppy:
> 
> dd if=stage1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1
> dd if=stage2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 seek=1
> 
> built the following grup.conf file:
> 
> splashimage=(hd1,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
> title DELL-DIAG
>         rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>         chainloader +1
> title WIN-XP
>         rootnoverify (hd0,1)
>         chainloader +1
> title CURRENT_LINUX
>         root (hd1,0)
>         kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 root=/dev/hdb2 ro
> 
> booted from the floppy and at the grub prompt I entered:
> 
> configfile (hd1,1)/etc/grub.conf
> 
> everything worked just fine.  Now to actually install grub
> on one of my hard drives.  can it really be as simple as
> grub --install ?? I don't want to wipe out the loader for
> WIN XP (not yet anyway).  Here is how Liunx fdisk sees things:
> 
>    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hda1             1         5     40131    6  FAT16
> /dev/hda2   *         6      7294  58548892+   7  HPFS/NTFS
> 
>    Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hdb1   *         1        13    104391   83  Linux
> /dev/hdb2            14       905   7164990   83  Linux
> /dev/hdb3           906      1035   1044225   82  Linux swap
> /dev/hdb4          1036      4865  30764475   83  Linux
> 
> and here is how I mount / and /boot:
> 
> Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
> /dev/hdb2              7052496   2022600   4671648  31% /
> /dev/hdb1               101089     25955     69915  28% /boot
> 
> It should be noted that the only boot options in the PC's BIOS
> are floppy, CD-ROM, and Hard-Disk c:
> 
> George
> 

I've done some more digging and ran across these instructions for
altering the XP boot configuration:

ON LINUX
#> grub-install /dev/dhb1
#> dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/mnt/floppy/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

ON WINDOWS
add the following line to c:\boot.ini

c:\linux.bin="LINUX"

copy linux.bin from the floppy to c:\


Well I've done all of that, and sure enough, when I boot from the
hard drive the NT Loader gives me the option to boot LINUX.  If I
select LINUX though, all that happens is "GRUB " prints out on the
monitor and then the system hangs.  Normally, this is an indication
that the boot partition is beyond sector 1024, but as you can
see from the above fdisk output, this does not appear to be the case.  

*any* help would be welcome!

George