How to install Grub from a live Ubuntu cd.

[kurup]

That appears to be a perfectly fine grub menu. Is it having an issue?

That is correct. It gives me the grub menu on boot-up..but when I scroll down to the 'Windows 2000' line..it flips me back to the first line. Strange..have no clue why?!

Right now it is booting with the 2.6.15-23-386 kernel to the second partition of your first hard drive, where it expects to find ubuntu. Are you getting into Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is booting up just fine..no problems there whatsoever

It is also booting to the first partition of your first hard drive where it expects to find windows. Are you getting into windows?

No. That is really the problem!

Here's what my fdisk looks like

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1305 10482381 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 1306 4780 27912937+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4781 4870 722925 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 4781 4870 722893+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Its supposed to be set to boot thru Windows.

Any suggestions for me?

[confused57]

catlett, your "HowTo" worked perfectly...I had installed Mepis after Dapper on another partition, allowing Mepis to overwrite grub to the mbr. However, Ubuntu wasn't automatically added to Mepis grub...I was able to add the Dapper into my Mepis menu.lst in order to boot Dapper.
Used your method with the Live CD to reinstall Dapper's grub to the mbr, then added the entry to boot Mepis. Thanks.

kurup, you might try removing the # in front of makeactive:

title Windows 2000
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
#makeactive
chainloader +1

If that doesn't work, try rootnoverify (hd0,0)

[catlett]

No. That is really the problem!

Here's what my fdisk looks like
Quote:
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40060403712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4870 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1305 10482381 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 1306 4780 27912937+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4781 4870 722925 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 4781 4870 722893+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Its supposed to be set to boot thru Windows.

Any suggestions for me?

Open the grub menu with this command (if you are in ubuntu, if you are using a distro that uses su instead of sudo, su to root and leave out sudo from the command)

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

The only thing strange is what confused57 pointed out. There is a comment in front of makeactive. A # tells the system that the following text is to be ignored. That the text is a comment by the writer and not a commnand.
Since "makeactive" is commented out, grub isn't setting the partition active and this may be the issue. So remove the # in front of makeactive and try to boot.
The only other thing to try is mentioned by confused57 as well, replace root with rootnoverify. This tells grub not to try and mount the partiution

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda1
title Windows 2000
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

See what happens. It should be booting because

/dev/hda1 * 1 1305 10482381 7 HPFS/NTFS

dev/hda1 is written by grub as (hd0,0). So the entry is correct. Try removing the # and then try rootnoverify.

If there is still an issue, you can re-installl grub again from the terminal. To install grub from the terminal
sudo grub-install /dev/hda

[kurup]

tried doing what you said..even followed this thread. still can't figure out where I'm screwing up?

Below is part of my dmeg:

[17179590.420000] NTFS driver 2.1.25 [Flags: R/O MODULE].
[17179590.452000] NTFS-fs warning (device hda1): is_boot_sector_ntfs(): Invalid boot sector checksum.
[17179590.452000] NTFS-fs error (device hda1): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is invalid.
[17179590.452000] NTFS-fs error (device hda1): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
[17179590.456000] NTFS-fs error (device hda1): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.

disk-manager app to fails to read the windows partition..any clues on what the real problem could be?

[tincbtrar]

Catlett,

Many thanks for your howto. I hosed my grub about 2 months ago after some Windows Updates for my ThinkPad. Today, after installing some other updates, grub was again broken. Your howto saved me from pulling out my hair!

Cheers.
Brian.

[tosk]

Mine was a slightly different story. I couldn't get grub to find the stage1 file or even recognize my drive. So I borrowed some knowledge I picked up while using Gentoo:

You have to mount your root partition using the livecd:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/root
$ sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sda6 /mnt/root

Then you have to mount the proc subsystem and udev inside /mnt/root also:

$ sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc
$ sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev

Doing this allows grub to discover your drives. Next you have to chroot:

$ sudo chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash

Now that you're chrooted into your drive as root everything should work.

# grub
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

It found mine on (hd0,5)

grub> root (hd0,5)

It successfully scanned the partition and recognized the filesystem-type

grub> setup (hd0)

That was it. It installed and on reboot I was thrown back into Ubuntu.

This might help some people who are having issues so I thought I would post it.

PLEASE NOTE: My Ubuntu was installed to /dev/sda6. This may not be the same for everyone. /dev/sdaX means it's SCSI/SATA/USB/FireWire drive. And it's partition 6 because I have a weird partitioning scheme in place.

--Tosk

[catlett]

This might help some people who are having issues so I thought I would post it.

I for one appreciate it. I did not know about mounting proc and udev.

Just a comment to your self and anyone else,
Please post any helpful information about grub. I made this "how to" not to show I was smart or as "the final word", I wanted it to be a source of help. I struggled with grub issues and I never found an easy way to re-install. When I finally did, I posted the info for otheres. So please, anyone, post any information that you know of that isn't here, it is welcome by me and I am sure it will be by people looking for grub help.
Thanks for the info tosk/

P.S. tincbtrar....Glad it helped.

[petri]

I used this HOWTO and now I can't start any hd, only cdrom and live cd works. BIOS finds hd's but GRUB doesn't show up. PC just stops.

On my second hd I have Edubuntu and when it's kernel is updated it chances grub and I can't start Ubuntu on my first hd. w2k starts although it's in my first hd. I thought that this howto would help me out but it did make everything just worse.

How is it possible that my PC can't find any hd after this howto? I didn't chance any BIOS or anything else, just followed this howto and everything vanished.

[petri]

Just forget it. I reinstalled Ubuntu instead.

Welcome back to Windows! =D>

[pt78]

I'm also having problems reinstalling grub (after installing XP). After doing either shorter or longer method described above (everything works just fine - no error messages) I reboot my machine ad get empty screen with blinking prompt. I tried installing to hd0, hd0,0 - always the same situation.
Any gueses what am I doing wrong?