GRUB MBR and restoring a partition

 
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Old 08-07-2011
GRUB MBR and restoring a partition

I tried to install another Linux O.S along with MS and to make two Linux's and one windows.Usually when I try this GRUB losses the ability to boot the first Linux install. It did it again. I would really like to get this first install bootable again.

Here are some facts.

-I have a rescue disk , a XP installation disk and a live Ubuntu Disk.

-If I use Gparted in the second Linux install; here by refered to as the second, I can mount the lost Distro but not of coarse boot it. From here I can get all the Grub files from this install.

-If I use the Rescue disk I can get the starting and ending sectors of the second install.

-The MBR is only 64 bytes long so this should not really be a burden.

So I need to either get the last installed O.S to chain load the lost one or get the MBR to point to the lost partitions boot sector.

Something I don't understand is how grub tranforms the MBR sector info to paths to find the partitions.

Any help will be appreciated!Smilie
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GRUB-INSTALL(8) 					  System Administration Utilities					   GRUB-INSTALL(8)

NAME
grub-install - install GRUB to a device SYNOPSIS
grub-install [OPTION] install_device DESCRIPTION
Install GRUB on your drive. -h, --help print this message and exit -v, --version print the version information and exit --modules=MODULES pre-load specified modules MODULES --boot-directory=DIR install GRUB images under the directory DIR/grub instead of the /boot/grub directory --grub-setup=FILE use FILE as grub-setup --grub-mkimage=FILE use FILE as grub-mkimage --grub-mkrelpath=FILE use FILE as grub-mkrelpath --grub-mkdevicemap=FILE use FILE as grub-mkdevicemap --grub-probe=FILE use FILE as grub-probe --no-floppy do not probe any floppy drive --allow-floppy Make the drive also bootable as floppy (default for fdX devices). May break on some BIOSes. --recheck probe a device map even if it already exists --force install even if problems are detected --disk-module=MODULE disk module to use INSTALL_DEVICE can be a GRUB device name or a system device filename. grub-install copies GRUB images into /boot/grub, and uses grub-setup to install grub into the boot sector. REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug-grub@gnu.org>. SEE ALSO
grub-mkconfig(8), grub-mkimage(1), grub-setup(8), grub-mkrescue(1) The full documentation for grub-install is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and grub-install programs are properly installed at your site, the command info grub-install should give you access to the complete manual. grub-install (GRUB) 1.99-12ubuntu5 October 2011 GRUB-INSTALL(8)