[NTLUG:Discuss] grub loader messing with my head

[David Evans]

okay great thanks but when grub comes up I can't type anything
so right know I don't care about linux I just need to get him back to 
square one and then choose another option for him.  So how do I fix his 
mbr???? Thanks for the reply any all assistance will be appreciated

Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

>On Wed, Sep 15, 2004 at 11:12:28AM -0500, David Evans wrote:
>  
>
>>Okay here is a good one.
>>fellow employee asked me to load suse 9.1 onto a usb external hd so he 
>>would not have ot do anything to his xp home install. He has a compaq 
>>presario 2100 laptop.
>>
>>So I said yea we can do that..
>>So the install goes well and everything works except his laptop will not 
>>boot unless the usb external drive is hooked up to the computer. 
>>Apparently suse changed the location of his master boot record and i 
>>need to change it back so windowos will boot off of itself again without 
>>the external hd.
>>    
>>
>
>SUSE installed grub to the master boot record, and grub is looking
>for the external drive (the linux partition) to find the configuration
>information it needs to boot.
>
>You can still boot to windows -- assuming that windows is on the
>first partition of the first hard disk (where it almost always is),
>do the following from the grub> prompt:
>
>   grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
>   grub> makeactive
>   grub> chainloader +1
>   grub> boot
>
>This should get back to windows.  You can then restore the MBR from
>windows -- but doing so will also largely eliminate your ability to boot
>to the linux installation on the external usb.   
>
>You might also try booting to linux and installing LILO instead of
>grub (or reinstalling linux with LILO).  Normally I prefer grub but
>in this instance LILO might be able to handle it better.
>
>Pm
>--------------
>Patrick R. Michaud, Ph.D., RHCE #808002519807115
>Web:   http://www.pmichaud.com
>Email: pmichaud at pobox.com
>
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