GRUB MBR and restoring a partition

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Special Forums Hardware Boot Loaders GRUB MBR and restoring a partition
# 1  
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
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

How to boot partition from Grub Minimal_BASH?

Hi, someone knows how can I boot my OS or cdrom from a Grub Minimal_Bash? :confused: sorry, I´m a dummy I explain, when I start loading the OS, I get errors, and ends up in the grub bash. This is the minimal_bash and I have no idea of ​​any command. It tells me "unknow partition". The problem is... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: veravera
0 Replies

2. Hardware

Hard Drives and MBR

Hello everyone. I have a question which I may know the answer to, I'm just looking for a confirmation. When it comes to the MBR of a hard drive, i've read in multiple sources that it's always located in the first sector of the hard drive. Is the MBR there from the factory? When I buy a new blank... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: Lost in Cyberia
3 Replies

3. Red Hat

Can we specify which grub.conf to use in grub-install.

Hi, Can we specify which grub.conf to use while installing grub on RHEL. We are working on application which requires different grub configurations needed, depending on certain criteria we need to update grub with correct grub.conf. Can we use grub-install for this purpose? (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: successlin
4 Replies

4. Boot Loaders

Lost MBR on disk

trying to recover a lost partition table, where the signature (0x55AA) has been lost, though attempting to restore using a number of tools (fdisk, testdisk et al) the write fails. also the os is unable to read the disk geometry correctly, after attempting to correct the geometry, the updated... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: xaphan
2 Replies

5. SCO

Backup MBR an Partition Table

hi How can I backup MBR an Partition Table of SCO 5.0.6? (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: ccc
7 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to select correct partition and kernel argument for grub?

I use command-line mode of GRUB to load kernel, but I can not know how to chose the partition and kernel argument, as followed : please tell me how to do deal with , thanks! (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: cqlouis
0 Replies

7. Red Hat

Grub Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition.

I dualboot Ubuntu and Fedora in one hard drive. Below are the scenario. First, installed Ubuntu 10.4 on the entire disk (40GiB of size). Then, shrink the Ubuntu installation to equal size to free up space for fedora. Second, installed Fedora 13 using the option "Use free space on selected... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: etcpasswd
2 Replies

8. Filesystems, Disks and Memory

Creating /boot partition & MBR concerns

I have 40GB HD with mepis8, swap, MBR and under flags word boot. I also have a 160 GB external with a few Linux OS, no swaps, no extended etc. I am total Linux no MS I would feel more secure by resizing that sda1 partition and creating a /boot partition with the MBR housed there. Is that a... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: worthamtx
1 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

grub problem- keeps rebooting as soon as it tries to do grub

Hi, I installed solaris 10 a few weeks ago. It was working fine during the past two weeks. However, now when I start to load to the drive, I get this problem: The BIOS screen comes up like normal, then screen goes blank and a message "Grub loading stage 2" flashes real quick then the computer... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: moesays
1 Replies

10. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to zero a disk (especially MBR)?

I'm confused. Originally I did telinit 1 cp /dev/sda /dev/sdb where sda is my boot disk and sdb is a USB disk. This probably copied my MBR. Since /dev/sdb is 300GB and /dev/sda only 160GB I had a bunch of space left which I decided to experiment with by creating partitions of various... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: siegfried
1 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question
installgrub(1M)                                                                                                                    installgrub(1M)

NAME
installgrub - install GRUB in a disk partition or a floppy SYNOPSIS
/sbin/installgrub [-fm] stage1 stage2 raw-device The installgrub command is an -only program. GRUB stands for GRand Unified Bootloader. installgrub installs GRUB stage 1 and stage 2 files on the boot area of a disk partition. If you specify the -m option, installgrub installs the stage 1 file on the master boot sector of the disk. The installgrub command accepts the following options: -f Suppresses interaction when overwriting the master boot sector. -m Installs GRUB stage1 on the master boot sector interactively. The installgrub command accepts the following operands: stage1 The name of the GRUB stage 1 file. stage2 The name of the GRUB stage 2 file. raw-device The name of the device onto which GRUB code is to be installed. It must be a character device that is readable and writable. For disk devices, specify the slice where the GRUB menu file is located. (For Solaris it is the root slice.) For a floppy disk, it is /dev/rdiskette. Example 1: Installing GRUB on a Hard Disk Slice The following command installs GRUB on a system where the root slice is c0d0s0: example# /sbin/installgrub /boot/grub/stage1 /boot/grub/stage2 /dev/rdsk/c0d0s0 Example 2: Installing GRUB on a Floppy The following command installs GRUB on a formatted floppy: example# mount -F pcfs /dev/diskette /mnt # mkdir -p /mnt/boot/grub # cp /boot/grub/* /mnt/boot/grub # umount /mnt # cd /boot/grub # /sbin/installgrub stage1 stage2 /dev/rdiskette /boot/grub Directory where GRUB files reside. See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Interface Stability |Evolving | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ boot(1M), fdisk(1M), fmthard(1M), kernel(1M), attributes(5) Installing GRUB on the master boot sector (-m option) overrides any boot manager currently installed on the machine. The system will always boot the GRUB in the Solaris partition regardless of which fdisk partition is active. 24 May 2005 installgrub(1M)