Grub Fedora Core 2 Installation/Upgrade Method Works

[Greg Morgan]

I tried Jakub Jelinek's upgrade/install from disk as described here
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-May/msg03696.html as 
pointed out by Fedora News here 
http://fedoranews.org/colin/fnu/issue12.shtml.  I followed step by step 
but received Error 15: File not found.  I thought that the *.msg files 
were needed but that did not solve the Error 15 message.  The one or two 
links that I tried from Google did not provide much help but got me 
thinking.  I compared the entries in my current grub configuration with 
the one provided in msg03696 above.  My current entries did not contain 
the /boot prefix.  As near as I can tell without a detailed examination 
of the documentation--I did read some of it too--the grub stanza root 
(hd0,1) sets a absolute root for booting.  All kernel and initrd lines 
need to start with just / as in /FC2-install not /boot/FC2-install.

Jakub's modified instructions are:
Simply, put the ISO images into some directory on that partition,
mount -o loop FC2-i386-disc1.iso /mnt/cdrom
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/vmlinuz /boot/FC2-install
cp -a /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/initrd.img /boot/FC2-install.img
umount /mnt/cdrom
and add entry like:
title Fedora Core 2 Installation
         root (hd0,0)
         kernel /FC2-install
         initrd /FC2-install.img
to your /etc/grub.conf, then reboot into "Fedora Core 2 Installation".
During the install choose Hard Disk installation and point the installer
at the partition with ISOs.

Compare your other grub.conf entries.  I also had to adjust the root 
(hd0,0) line to (hd0,1) for my computer.  This is the first hard drive 
and the second partition.  Another lesser known operating system is on 
partition one, i.e. 0 for dual booting.  It thinks it is the only OS in 
the world. ;-)

I used this technique to successfully upgrade from FC1 to FC2.  In my 
situation, I used the NFS method.  Jakub also kindly pointed out this 
idea here http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-May/msg03710.html.

I have never tried this kind of install before.  My hat's off to the 
developers of the anaconda installer.  That's real slick.  The installer 
takes a directory full of ISOs and mounts them as required.

Kind thanks to both Jakub and Fedora News.

Regards,
Greg Morgan