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Grub!


marcrob
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Hi All,

 

I'm a linux newbie...I have mandriva 2006 installed on my dell 600m laptop along with WinXp (Dual boot).Everything was working fine my wireless.....everything. I wanted to try another Linux distribution( FC5). so i created partition for that and installed it selecting all the default options....

 

Now i have a problem my system is not showing any of the OS that i have installed. When i try to reboot it just shows as

 

"GNU GRUB version 0.97"

 

grub>

 

I'm completely confused about it....... I really dont like the idea of re-installing everything. I would take that as my last option. Is it possile to restore my system back to what i had. I mean to say just the Mandriva and Winxp if possible have FC5 too....

 

Thanks!!!!!

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It is probably not that complicated, scarecrow. ;)

 

Take your first CD of Mandriva and boot with it. Hit F1 for advanced options and type "rescue" in order to go into rescue mode. Then select "reinstall bootloader" and off you go. The CD will now reinstall the Mandriva-bootloader. Once this is done, reboot. When you are in Mandriva, edit Mandrivas bootloader (lilo or grub) so it has an entry for booting fedora. If you need help with the dual-boot configuration, let us know.

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Actually it *is* a bit more complicated than that, because lilo can't overwrite grub and a couple of other primary bootloaders on the mbr... factly, this is one of the several reasons I prefer grub over lilo.

So- the above method will likely fail, on the first place.

Better chances if first one boots first from a windows 9X diskette and performs "fdisk/mbr" before trying to reinstall lilo from the Mandriva CD.

Edited by scarecrow
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Sorry, I have overwritten grub with lilo several times and it works very often. If it fails, he can still use the fedora cd and reinstall grub. ;) But let him try the first option now, if that fails, we can point him on the second option.

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Hi All,

 

Thanks for your replies....

 

I tried the first option...like mandriva first CD1 and rescue mode and and press F1 but i didnt c much options over there. can u guyz be more specific....I'm sorry i'm newbie.........

 

 

 

Thanks

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Read my post again. :)

Hit "F1"

type "rescue"

select from the menu: "Reinstall bootloader"

Reboot

I guess that is as detailed as possible. There ain't much more to tell. :D

 

If that doesn' work, boot your system with the fedora rescue-CD and type at the prompt:

chroot /mnt/sysimage

The system will be mounted in a chroot environment now. From there, type "/sbin/fdisk -l". This will tell you the partition structure of your drive. Important are only the letters you get there. hda could be e.g. your Linux harddrive. hdb the Windows. It could also be hdc and hdd, it depends a bit on your computer setup (order of hdds connected to motherboard). If you get e.g. a linux partition listing with hda1, hda5, hda6, then you will have to reinstall the bootloader on hda. Thus, type now:

/sbin/grub-install /dev/hda

then reboot the system (e.g. by typing "init 6" or hitting ctrl+alt+del) and check if the bootloader works now. If yes, you will have to add Mandriva later, but let's take a look at that for later.

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Yes. Open a terminal and mount the Mandriva partition (e.g. mount -t ext3 /dev/hda2 /mnt). Then go to the folder /mnt/boot and take a look at it. there will be a vmlinuz entry and a initrd entry. Those are important. Now launch as root from the terminal in Fedora

 

gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

 

and add a boot section there that uses the vmlinuz and initrd entries. Remember that grub starts counting at 0, not at 1.

 

a possible Multiboot-section in grub can look like this:

 

title Mandriva 2006 (2.6.12-i686up-4G-22)

root (hd0,1)

kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz-2.6.12-22mdk-i686-up-4GB root=/dev/hdc2 resume=/dev/hdc3 splash=silent vga=788

initrd (hd0,0)/initrd-2.6.12-22mdk-i686-up-4GB.img

 

title Fedora Core (2.6.16-1.2122_FC5)

root (hd1,4)

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.16-1.2122_FC5 ro root=LABEL=/1 rhgb quiet

initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.16-1.2122_FC5.img

 

Here, Mandriva is residing on harddisk 1 and fedora on harddisk 2 If you change the Mandriva section, so that it matches your kernel and initrd name, plus the partition numbers everywhere and safe the file, you should have a working dual-boot system. Remember: you have to edit vmlinuz, initrd.img, root=7dev/hdXX and resume=/dev/hdXX. resume points to your swap partition.

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