Grub is gone?

[y0umebednow]

So im trying to Re-install XP on my laptop which currently has ubuntu 8.10 and windows XP in dual boot. i know when i install XP again, the grub will be gone and i wont be able to boot into Ubuntu. So, im trying to back up the menu.lst but when i type in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst. into the terminal, the file menu.lst comes up but it is blank. no letters, numbers, or symbols. So how do i go about doing this task?

Thank you

[Elfy]

You don't need to back it up - it doesn't delete the file - it just writes it's onw unsharing bootloader to the mbr - all you need to do is reinstall grub with your livecd

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows

[dstew]

It sounds like gedit is trying to create a new menu.lst file. I am not sure why. One possibility: gedit is a gnome graphical editor. Perhaps the sudo command is not giving it root privleges. Usually, for a gnome program, you need to do gksudo instead of sudo. Press Alt-F2 to get a graphical command line, then enter
gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lstand see if that works.

[Elfy]

Of course if you want to back a file up - use cp


sudo cp /path/to/file /path/to/backup

Like


sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.0502