[NTLUG:Discuss] Boot Loader

[terry]

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.  
>>>      
>>>

You're making this out to be much harder than it should be.  If the 
grub.conf file looks okay go for it.  If it doesn't work, fix it.

grub --install

(The default is to write grub into the MBR of /dev/hda.)(Which is where 
you want it.)

If you're afraid you can't get back into MS Windows, make a boot disk, 
try it out and make sure it works, and that takes care of that.   But, 
even if you don't do that, you could put in the MS Windows CD and I"m 
pretty sure there's a utility that'll restore the MS Windows boot loader 
temporarily.
In Win 9x & ME, you only had to boot to a Win9x or ME "rescue" [boot] 
disk and type command:
fdsik /mbr
and it'd re-write the MS Windows bootloader back into the MBR.

BUT, you don't want that.   You want grub to be your boot loader, it's a 
much better boat loader and way more versatile and easy to use.

>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 ?? 
>

Yes.  

>I don't want to wipe out the loader for
>WIN XP (not yet anyway). 
>

Why not?  grub is a much better boot loader.  (It works, try it.)

> 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
>
There it is:

/dev/hdb1               101089     25955     69915  28% /boot

That's where your boot image(s) are.

>
>It should be noted that the only boot options in the PC's BIOS
>are floppy, CD-ROM, and Hard-Disk c:
>

That's fine.  You're going to use the bootloader in c:  which is 
/dev/hda, which is the first ide drive on the first ide port. That's fine.

>
>George
>
>_______________________________________________
>https://ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>.
>
>  
>


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Registered Linux User #188099
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