bootloader/GRUB not installing

[pikaia]

Hey everyone.

 

This is my first official use of Mandriva. I've used PCLOS, and liked it so now I've tried Mandriva and really like it. I installed it on a partition on my old 600X Thinkpad that I play with Linux distros. But after the reboot, my machine booted directly into XP. GRUB never came up. So I went back into the Mandriva One LiveCD and went to the MCC and into Boot. It told me it couldn't find a bootloader on the drive and so I reinstalled. Both times I had to manually add Windows to the menu... which has never happened before.

 

Again, after reboot, straight into XP. Is there something I'm missing here? I used the default options, and I've never had a problem yet and have installed several OSes on this machine and others that I dual boot.

 

Any help would be great. I'd love to give the OS a real test drive from the HDD.

 

Thanks.

[viking777]

Hey everyone.

 

This is my first official use of Mandriva. I've used PCLOS, and liked it so now I've tried Mandriva and really like it. I installed it on a partition on my old 600X Thinkpad that I play with Linux distros. But after the reboot, my machine booted directly into XP. GRUB never came up. So I went back into the Mandriva One LiveCD and went to the MCC and into Boot. It told me it couldn't find a bootloader on the drive and so I reinstalled. Both times I had to manually add Windows to the menu... which has never happened before.

 

Again, after reboot, straight into XP. Is there something I'm missing here? I used the default options, and I've never had a problem yet and have installed several OSes on this machine and others that I dual boot.

 

Any help would be great. I'd love to give the OS a real test drive from the HDD.

 

Thanks.

 

Sounds like grub has not been installed properly or not installed to the mbr. You need to use your live cd again and when it is running open a root terminal and type:

 

grub

 

this will give you a grub prompt and here you type:

 

find /boot/grub/stage1

 

this will tell you the location of grub it could be something like (hd0,3) for example.

 

Using whatever info you get from the previous command you then type:

 

root (hd0,3)

 

then:

 

setup (hd0)

 

providing you want to boot from the first disk on your machine (if you only have one disk don't worry about it)

 

then type:

 

quit

 

to exit the grub prompt, followed by:

 

init 6

 

to reboot, and then you should get a grub menu on startup.

[pikaia]

I started running this but after typing the find command it came back with 'Error 15 file not found.' So I got stuck again. What now?

[viking777]

So grub was never installed in the first place. It must be something to do with the options you are using when you chose to install grub form the live cd, I suggest you try again with the live cd 'boot' option or have a look at this site:

 

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/ht...02dinstall.html

 

and maybe try the:

 

grub-install  (hd,0)

 

option, but as it says it is less safe, it may interfere with your windows installation although that is not the end of the world it can be restored.

[pikaia]

At boot I ESC out to a boot: and type grub-install /dev/hda but it says it can't find grub-install. I tried this with a Linux-Mint CD I have here too and both come up no-goes. Am I missing an option here? Should I be booted in first?

 

As far as the install options are concerned, I just used the default options (except for adding Windows to the bootloader, which wasn't found). So I have no idea where the problem is. But after clicking Finish a small window pops up and goes away quickly and thats it. In PCLOS it would say your machine now needs to be rebooted. So I think something is definitely amiss.

 

EDIT: I'm currently reinstalling. (poor mans fix) Hopefully it'll work but my hopes are low. I tried a grub-install /dev/hda from konsole and it came back with an error about not having grub or a /boot device.

Edited August 6, 2008 by pikaia

[pikaia]

Well the poor mans fix accomplished nothing. It is behaving the same. I tried SuperGrub, to no avail and walked through installing grub this way:

grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/hdb

update-grub

 

But the grub-install still said I did create a root directory. So I am lost. I'm going to try the directions here: http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/ht...B-natively.html, but without having a GRUB to start with, I'm thinking I'm screwed.

[ffi]

Are there any files in /boot/grub?

 

if so please give menu.lst and device.map

 

 

 

my guess is the bootloader got installed on the wrong drive/partition...

[pikaia]

I don't know whats going on. After finally getting the /dev/hda to mount in the Live CD I can go to the root folder and see both partitions (hd, hd2). In hd is my Windows XP stuff, and in hd2 is the Mandriva. There is a /boot/grub folder in there. But obviously not where it should be. Despite my efforts to write it to the MBR. Should I try to write it to the hd?

 

fdisk spits this out:

 

 

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20003880960 bytes

240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2584 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x000633ce

 

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

/dev/hda1 * 1 1459 11030008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

/dev/hda2 1460 2584 8505000 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)

/dev/hda5 1460 2584 8504968+ e W95 FAT16 (LBA)

 

So should I try writing the grub to hda1?

 

Thanks. Sorry, this is a new problem for me (only been using Linux for about a year) and I'm getting a bit frustrated...

 

I used the default settings for the bootloader. Which was hda (I believe)... So I don't know what else to do. I'm currently in the Live CD so I guess I can run through it again...

Edited August 6, 2008 by pikaia

[ffi]

/boot is right where it should be, the loader should be written to /dev/hda not hda1

[pikaia]

Going into Boot under MCC, the first message I'm met with is "No Bootloader found, creating new configuration." Despite me installing the bootloader 3 times now. Doing a package search shows that GRUB is installed on the CD. grub-install /dev/hda does nothing so does grub-install --root-directory /dev/hda

 

Anything else I should try?

[ffi]

I have a feeling you are using they wrong option under boot, you are seeing something similar to this?:

 

 

 

[pikaia]

yep. After seeing the No Bootloader found... message and hitting OK.

Edited August 6, 2008 by pikaia

[ffi]

you are in the live-cd now, right? can you give the output of mount?  (and the content of the 2 files I previously asked for)

 

Your drive might be mounted read-only....

[pikaia]

Ok, Here is the output of mount -l:

none on / type unionfs (rw)

none on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw)

/dev/hda1 on /media/hd type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime,allow_other,blksize=4096)

/dev/hda5 on /media/hd2 type ext3 (rw)

none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)

 

And the options given in the bootloader set up (don't know how to do a screenshot in Mandriva...)

 

/dev/hda (1C25N020ATMR04-0) - default - the one I've been choosing.

/dev/hda5

[ffi]

try the other options then hda5 first else hda1

 

do you have any other disks attached (internal/external)?

 

 

 

anyway I am going to bed now, sorry