Installing grub to dual boot

[Brad De Vries]

On 6/10/05, Mike Reinehr <cmr at amsent.com> wrote:
> On Friday 10 June 2005 10:57 am, Brad De Vries wrote:
> > On 6/10/05, Mike Reinehr <cmr at amsent.com> wrote:
> > > On Friday 10 June 2005 08:15 am, Brad De Vries wrote:
> > > > Everyone/Anyone, I could use some assistance here.  I'll start with a
> > > > little history to make the current state and desired direction a bit
> > > > clearer:
> > > >
> > > > 1) Got a laptop with win2000 pro from work with a 20GB HD formatted
> > > > FAT32. 2) Ran the disk defragment and error checking tools so
> > > > everything was "clean." 3) Booted Knoppix and successfully ran "parted"
> > > > to reduce the FAT32 partition from 20GB to 10GB.
> > > > 4) System failed to boot win2000 due to error "NTLDR is missing."
> > > > Figured I'd fix that later.
> > > > 5) Installed Fedora Core 3 into the newly freed up 10GB.
> > > > 6) System booted fine into FC3 and the crowd went wild.
> > > > 7) Verified the grub.conf had an option to the win2000 side and
> > > > rebooted. 8) Chose the win2000 option from the grub menu but it failed
> > > > to boot due to "NTLDR is missing" error.
> > > > 9) After much googling, hunting, and trying I was able to fix the
> > > > win2000 boot problem but in doing so overwrote grub from the MBR.
> > > > 10) Figured that since the original problem (see step 4) came from
> > > > changing the disk partition size, all I'd have to do is boot the linux
> > > > side and run grub-install.
> > > > 11) I've booted from the FC3 disk in rescue mode and Knoppix and
> > > > neither will successfully run "grub-install /dev/hda2".  The command
> > > > hangs.
> > > >
> > > > So the current state is that I can boot win2000 fine (hda1,) I have
> > > > FC3 installed (hda2) but I can't re-install grub so that I can boot
> > > > either O/S.
> > > >
> > > > What I'd like is to have grub appear at boot time and allow me to
> > > > choose either FC3 or win2000.  How do I re-install grub to allow that
> > > > to happen?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > Brad.
> > >
> > > Brad,
> > >
> > > >From the GRUB Manual:
> > >
> > > 3.3 Installing GRUB using grub-install
> > >
> > >         _Caution:_ This procedure is definitely deprecated, because there
> > > are several possibilities that your computer can be unbootable.
> > >
> > > Grab a copy of the GRUB Manual & read parts 3, 3.1 & 3.2 which will
> > > describe how to create a GRUB boot floppy & then install GRUB to the MBR.
> > >
> > > Cheers!
> > >
> > > cmr
> >
> > Mike, I appreciate the "read more" comments and will continue to do so
> > but I am unable to follow-through with your second suggestion.  I
> > can't create a bootable floppy because the laptop has either a CD or
> > the floppy drive installed at any given time and I need the CD to
> > boot.  I've never tried removing the CD drive while the system is
> > running and installing the floppy drive but I can't image that would
> > be good.
> >
> > Once I get back home where I have other Linux machines, I'll be able
> > to create a bootable floppy.  I am curious however, what would it do
> > differently that booting from CD doesn't allow?
> >
> > Brad
> 
> I don't think that it really makes a difference whether you have booted from a
> floppy or a CD. The gist of paragraph 3.3 was the danger or running
> grub-install from a "live" system.
> 
> I apologize for my comment sounding like a RTFM. I really was referencing the
> paragraphs because they were rather lengthy to quote & I was too lazy to
> paraphrase them. The important part was in 3.2, Installing GRUB natively,
> because it provides you with the individual commands which are used in
> setting up the MBR. Install-grub is just a shell script incorporating these
> "native" commands. That way you can see where the problem is.
> 
> cmr

Mike, I was not offended by your comments although I must admit that
the line about "grub-install is deprecated" made me a bit nervous.  I
didn't see that in the documentation that I had read and since it was
available, and appeared to do what I want, it made sense.

As I investigate further, I think the problem lies in the fact that I
have win2000 on the first partition and Linux on the second.  If I
install grub into the MBR it must remove the NTLDR boot loader.  I
guess what I'm going to try to do next is setup the NTLDR to be able
to run grub.  Hopefully that will work and I'll have the same result
just a different path.

Brad.