SUCCESS Installation - Upgrading Boot Loader

Þing) thingkcp at netscape.net
Wed Dec 31 14:36:51 UTC 2003


Thanks for the help, Scott.
I have now emerged, bloody but victorious, from a stressful couple of days upgrading to GRUB.
Lots of things seemed to go wrong, including at one point GRUB deciding it could not see my Linux boot partition, but in the end I got GRUB to boot Fedora.
My biggest problem - and this should serve as a warning to others - was that somewhere along the way I managed to type  'grub-install /dev/hda1' instead of  'grub-install /dev/hda'.
The effect of this was to write part of GRUB into my Windows boot sector.  This meant that DOS could not even read my C: drive, let alone start Windows.  Some might say that was a good thing, but I still need it for some programs and other family members still use it.
Fortunately I discovered that some kind person had posted on his website a fix for just this problem.  It's here: http://sims.berkeley.edu/~jhall/grub_install_hda1.html.
Now I'm facing 2004 with a happy heart as I have a PC that boots correctly and a Fedora installation that mostly works.

Scott Talbot <talbotscott at cox.net> wrote:

>On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 16:16, Þing) wrote:
>> Thanks for the help, Scott.  I'm afraid I still haven't got on top of this yet, though...
>> 
>> >> 1.  How can I force an upgrade of the boot configuration to GRUB?
>> >
>> >Once you are running fedora get to a terminal and su  to root run
>> >grub-install /dev/hda (assuming that is where your boot drive mbr is)
>> 
>> I am rather nervous about this - I have to dual-boot with Win95 :-( 
>> and if I get this wrong it will cause trouble for other people.  The 
>> problem is that I can't find a grub configuration file in /boot (or 
>> anywhere else for that matter) and so I don't know how grub is going 
>> to know what to do.  When I installed RH7.3 there was a GUI that talked 
>> me through the process of setting up LILO, but I can't find anything 
>> similar in FC1.  There's a menu item labelled 'lilo config', but the 
>> program it refers to doesn't exist.
>> 
>> >> 2.  Has the Fedora installation upgraded the kernel on my HD?
>> >    The installation should have placed kernal 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl on your
>> >drive when you tried to put grub on your mbr it was anaconda (the
>> >install program) that told you you still have the 2.4.22.2115.nptl
>> >kernal (by the way there is an upgrade available when you get read for
>> >it.
>> >
>> >> 3.  If not, how can I force a kernel upgrade?
>> >    Once you get grub installed or even if you just get into a terminal,
>> >type 'uname -a' you will get a string of characters including kernal
>> >version. Of course when GRUB is installed you'll see the kernal in the
>> >boot sequence too!
>> 
>> 'uname -a' gives the following:
>> Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl #1 Wed Oct 29 15:42:51 EST 2003 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>> 
>> That's the kernel loaded from the boot floppy. It's also the version 
>> that I can see in /boot - so I can't work out why LILO doesn't load it properly.
>> 
>> This is what my lilo.conf looks like:
>> 
>> --- begin lilo.conf
>> boot=/dev/hda
>> prompt
>> timeout=100
>> message=/boot/message
>> root=/dev/hdb3
>> vga=791
>> 
>> other=/dev/hda1
>>     label=Windows98
>> ---end
>> 
>I know what you mean about being nervous.  I am new enough to linux that
>quite a bit scares me too.  Even though the boot process is one of the
>scariest things (everything else can be avoided!) it is usually easy to
>remedy anything that can go wrong. You could, for example, boot up your
>Windows disk and go into rescue mode, type FDISK /mbr and you won't see
>linux anymore allowing you to re-install.  You could find a floppy
>version of fdisk (for linux) this would allow you to delete all your
>linux partitions and you could start over from scratch. But I digress...
>
>You don't have a grub.config file because you have never installed grub,
>only LILO (that's what I remember from your last post - correct?).  I
>guess your best course is to proceed -- cautiously!  Try booting into
>your windows CD, type Help FDISK you should find all the info you need
>if you end up needing to start this over. You could back up all your
>data just to be safe. It wouldn't hurt to type man grub-install so you
>know what it will do for you.  Once you're sure that all it will take is
>a little work - go for it!  Do the grub-install, (Keep your fingers
>crossed).
>
>Good luck
>Scott
>
>
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>fedora-list at redhat.com
>To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>


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Þing
Keeper of the Correctly Placed Apostrophe


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