Cannot Boot Mandriva 2008.1 - Grub Error 2

[Guest JackNL]

Thanks adamw,

DistroWatch has new comments each week. The one adamw is referring to is

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20080414&mode=67

Comments 26 - 34 - 68 - 74 are discussing this problem. More may follow.

The idea of #34 is use chainloader like for the Windows partition.

title Mandriva

root (hd0,x)

chainloader +1

 

This worked great for me. Thanks for the tip! I'm using the Mandriva 2007.1 grub bootloader with Mandriva 2008.1. This bootloader then loads the 2008.1 grub bootloader where I have to hit Enter once more to boot it.

 

I did remember to install the 2008.1 grub bootloader in the root partition hd0,x (not the MBR) when I installed 2008.1.

[krisbee2000]

This tip worked great... I thought I was losing my mind. I just set the 2nd grub for 2008 to have a timeout of 0 and it just boots fine. I didn't want to lose my grub from my 2006 install until I am sure that I am not going back, and that will take months of making sure!

[rambutan]

I just installed Fedora9, ran Grub> Setup (hd0) (hd0,5) and added Fedora9 to my menu.lst.

You guessed it. Grub Error 2.

Mandriva had already taken me down that road so I just used the "cp -a" trick

and and and oh no !!

Fedora defaults to SELinux enabled. After "cp -a" even with the correct password Fedora refused to let me log in. Booting "single" and changing the root and user password, still Fedora refused to let me log in.

So I reinstalled Fedora9. This time I was careful to put the boot loader on /dev/sdb9 and NOT the MBR of the first drive. Doing this then the chainloader worked.

To test some more I disabled SELinux and tried the cp -a trick. Then it worked.

I do like the chainloader approach better. If you update the kernel it updates the second grub and keeps itself current without manual edit to the master menu.lst. In the second menu.lst I commented out the splash image, hiddenmenu, and set timeout to 0.

 

But here is the ongoing concern. By reinstalling and choosing to install grub to the root partition and not the MBR then chain linking works. I tried every way I could think of to get the Mandriva rescue/install CD to fix the Mandriva partition by reinstalling grub to Mandriva' s root partition but could not. So I never got chain linking to work on the existing Mandriva partition.

 

JackNL, krisbee2000, others... Has anyone installed GRUB to MBR as is the default and then run grub setup to an old menu.lst (for example Ubuntu) and been able to use chainlinking? Without reinstalling? If so how?

[krisbee2000]

But here is the ongoing concern. By reinstalling and choosing to install grub to the root partition and not the MBR then chain linking works. I tried every way I could think of to get the Mandriva rescue/install CD to fix the Mandriva partition by reinstalling grub to Mandriva' s root partition but could not. So I never got chain linking to work on the existing Mandriva partition.

 

JackNL, krisbee2000, others... Has anyone installed GRUB to MBR as is the default and then run grub setup to an old menu.lst (for example Ubuntu) and been able to use chainlinking? Without reinstalling? If so how?

 

The way I did it was to reinstall, but I didn't allow it to reformat the drive, and just when I was about to install and the first rpm was on its' way, I hit cancel, which then brought me to the grub install section, where I put grub on the partition drive (not MBR, where my old grub I wanted was).