add new Linux on new Hard Drive

Nigel Henry cave.dnb at tiscali.fr
Tue Aug 1 13:34:53 UTC 2006


On Tuesday 01 August 2006 13:54, Victor L. wrote:
> I have a dual boot (Wondows/FC 5) system using one partioned hardrive.
> I have added a second hard drive and would like to add FC 5 to the new
> drive before erasing old version. Want to dedicate the new drive to
> Linux.  Installation works fine but the grub process does not. When I
> reboot, Grub only shows the old Linux (as well as Windows.)  Howver,
> Linux Rescue lets me choose between the two Linux installations.  Being
> able to boot to just the new drive would be fine.
>
> Any suggests, references.  Thx

Hi Victor. Where did you put Grub for the new FC5 on the second haddrive? You 
should have put it in the MBR of hda (presuming that's the first harddrive). 
This would have resulted in getting the Grub menu for Grub on the new FC5 
install at bootup, which should also have a chainloader set up for Windows, 
but not for the old FC5 on hda, as the old Grub would have been overwritten 
by the new one.

You probably know this, but just in case. To put Grub from the new FC5 into 
the MBR of hda (the one with Windows on it), bootup the rescue disc, select 
the / partition of the new FC5 which gets you into a /mnt/sysimage 
environment. Then type, chroot /mnt/sysimage, then grub-install hda. Exit 
twice (I think), then reboot the machine, removing the rescue disc.

If you still want to boot the old FC5 on hda, theres a bit more work to be 
done. Presuming that you now are able to boot into the new FC5, and know 
the / partition, or /boot partition, if you have a separate one for the old 
FC5 on hda, open a terminal, su to root, open a text editor (your choice), 
and go to /boot/grub/grub.conf .  We'll add a chainloader to link to Grub for 
the old FC5. Presuming you only have a / partition for the old FC5, the 
chainloader will look like this.

title  Old FC5
root (hda,x)                 (changing "x" for the / partition)
chainloader +1

Save, and exit the text editor, and terminal.  Shut down the machine.  Using 
the rescue disk once more, this time go to the / partition of the old FC5 on 
hda, chroot /mnt/sysimage, then, grub-install hdax , changing "x" to the / 
partition of the old FC5. Exit the chrooted environment, remove the disc, and 
reboot. Now when you reboot, you'll get the new FC5s Grub, and can try out 
the chainloader to link to the Grub you've just installed on the / partition 
of the old FC5. You should now have the old FC5s, Grub menu, and can boot the 
old one.

While you were in grub.conf, it is usefull to change a few things. Change 
timeout to 30.  Put a # in front of Hiddenmenu, and remove the "rhgb quiet" 
from the end of the kernel entries, which will allow you to see all the text 
on bootup. 

All the best.

Nigel.




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