Grub doesn't install

[Ian]

Thanks for the tips, I will try them.
As I mentioned in my original email, when I tried fixmbr in recovery 
console under XP I got so many dire warnings about doing it I chickened 
out. I can't afford to lose my Windows disk. (At the very least I'll 
have to do some backups first. Maybe I should do that anyway... ;-) ).
I'll try the linux rescue, chroot /mnt/sysimage thing again (I've 
installed Mandrake again but will install FC4 again to try it) but last 
time it told me there was a problem with /hdb1 not having a valid BIOS 
something, I will take note of the full message next time.
I know Windows is on /hda, /boot was on /hdb1, swap was on /hdb5 and 
root (/) was on /hdb6. I think that's how it went anyway. I'll do it 
again and make notes this time. I know it's difficult to diagnose 
problems with sketchy information.
Thanks again,
Ian

akonstam at trinity.edu wrote:

>On Tue, Sep 20, 2005 at 06:59:02AM -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
>  
>
>>Ian wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Hi Jim,
>>>Thanks for the response.
>>>My problem is, though, that I can't boot FC4 at all, because grub 
>>>didn't get installed when I reinstalled FC4. The master boot record 
>>>still contains lilo from my install of Mandrake, and it won't boot 
>>>FC4. So I have no way of changing any grub settings. I think they call 
>>>it stuck between a rock and a hard place...
>>>Ian
>>>      
>>>
>>An easy way to wipe out the MBR information is by booting up a startup 
>>disk for the w9x series OS and typing "fdisk /MBR". This wipes out grub 
>>or lilo from the master boot record. A DOS boot disk with fdisk on it 
>>should do the same, using "fdisk /mbr"
>>XP uses the recovery console and I believe you type fixmbr to clear the mbr.
>>To clear the MBR in Linux, I don't know how to do this. There is 
>>probably a utility to clear the MBR somewhere.
>>
>>Jim
>>    
>>
>Another way to do it is:
>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1 bc=446 
>or:
>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446  bc=1
>
>But I don't understand why you can't boot with linux rescue, chroot to
>your FC4  root partition (chroot /mnt/sysimage) and run grub-install
>
>Obviously hda might be hdb or sda, etc.
>  
>
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