Hosed Grub with the push of a button

[max]

max wrote:
> max wrote:
>> Jim Webb wrote:
>>> max wrote:
>>>> I hosed grub. I need to fix it. I booted from fedora rescue. I 
>>>> chroot to /mnt/sysimage. All good. I tried :
>>>>
>>>> grub-install  /dev/sda
>>>>
>>>> The  file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
>>>>
>>>> tried:
>>>>
>>>> grub-install /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00
>>>>
>>>> The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> tried:
>>>>
>>>> cd /boot/grub
>>>>
>>>> cat stage1
>>>>
>>>> output maybe human readable by some humans but not this one.
>>>>
>>>> So far I can still see all the user files so I can backup and 
>>>> reinstall but that wouldn't teach me anything.
>>>> All suggestions/insults/how-to's welcome.
>>>>
>>>> Max
>>>>
>>> Max,
>>> I looked this up on Red Hat's KBase:
>>>
>>> http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-5-manual/en-US/RHEL510/Installation_Guide/s2-rescuemode-boot-reinstall-bootloader.html 
>>>
>>>
>>> Hope this helps,
>>> Jim
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the link but i had tried that and it didn't work. The 
>> following explains why but I don't see an easy way to do it, i'll do 
>> it the hard way , its the only option left, I need some help on best 
>> method or whether its even possible.
>>
>>
>>
>>  From rescue cd, l let me outline what i see like a terminal :
>>
>> sh-3.2# chroot /mnt/sysimage
>> sh-3.2# cd boot
>> sh-3.2#ls
>> boot    grub (there shouldn't another boot directory should there?Also 
>> no config files, no initrd, no system map,no vmlinuz, will 
>> copying          from another f8 be good enough to restore these, i 
>> would guess yes but I am getting hungry so i'll deal with that first, 
>> i          should have noticed these missing yesterday but it was late 
>> etc....rest of this probably doesn't matter but for 
>> the                     sake  of thoroughness i'll go through 
>> everything anyway)
>>
>> sh-3.2#cd grub
>> sh-3.2#ls
>> device.map        ffs_stage1_5        reiserfs_stage1_5    
>> vstafs_stage1_5
>> device.map.backup  iso9660_stage1_5    stage1                
>> xfs_stage1_5   e2fs_stage1_5        jfs_stage1_5        
>> stage2               fat_stage1_5        minix_stage1_5        
>> ufs2_stage1_5
>>
>> I notice as I type this that menu.lst, menu.lst.backup, and 
>> splash.xpm.gz are all missing, i'm not quite sure how to regenerate 
>> them, I could copy them from my other box but menu.lst won't be 
>> identical.....i'll have to think about that one but without missing 
>> files in boot what does it matter?Missing files would explain why grub 
>> says it can't find stage1, presumably it needs the missing files in 
>> /boot to locate stage1
>>
>> If you remember I noticed another boot directory inside /boot
>>
>> sh-3.2#cd /
>> sh-3.2#cd boot
>> sh-3.2#ls
>> boot     grub
>> sh-3.2#cd boot
>> sh-3.2#ls
>> grub
>>
>> sh-3.2#cd grub
>> sh-3.2#ls
>>
>> device.map        ffs_stage1_5        reiserfs_stage1_5    
>> vstafs_stage1_5
>>                   iso9660_stage1_5    stage1                
>> xfs_stage1_5   e2fs_stage1_5        jfs_stage1_5        
>> stage2               fat_stage1_5        minix_stage1_5        
>> ufs2_stage1_5
>>
>>
>> It is the same as the contents of the other grub directory minus the 
>> device.map.backup. I don't think this directory should exist at all 
>> but it may have been created by my earlier attempts to fix grub. While 
>> I don't think it should be there, i don't think it should cause a 
>> problem because I never told grub to look in /boot/boot/grub , without 
>> the missing files from /boot i think i'm screwed. Will copying these 
>> from another f8 do the trick? I think that is the question of the 
>> moment. I am thinking yes because these boxes are updated to the same 
>> point(i've complied a kernel or two so i think it will work) but how 
>> much trouble will it cause? Well I'm off to dinner. All suggestion, 
>> insults, etc
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Max
>>
>>
>>
> Well I copied all the files from boot that I needed to the other 
> machine. Two files system.map and vmlinuz would not copy because they 
> were in use but these are created on the fly for the running system, I 
> think, i'd appreciate some confirmation here. The other thing I did was 
> to blow away the contents of the /boot/grub. Then i did :
> 
> #grub-install /dev/sda
> 
> The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly.
> 
> I can't imagine that menu.lst or the splash file are that important but 
> grub.conf probably is, i would have thought that installing grub would 
> create one, so I will recreate that next and see what happens, i'll pull 
> a copy of the splash and menu.lst in too and modify what needs modifying 
> from memory.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Max


I finally wised up and ran fdsik -l ( it aint pretty):

sh-3.2#fdisk -l

Device    	Boot			Start		End		Blocks		Id	System
/dev/sda1 	*			30076	     30401	   2618563         c	W95 FAT32(LBA)
/dev/sda2				    26		30401	      243995220	    8e   Linux LVM

Partition table entries are not in disk order.

I really could use a few pointers here as I am not sure that its even 
possible to recover at this point. I wish I'd have thought to run this 
command sooner, course i'd not have learned some of the handy info I've 
picked up since I touched off this mess so I guess I've broken even, not 
bad but I'd still like to think I could come out ahead on this one or 
should I just backup and install/upgrade to Sulphur.



Max