Question about the bootloader installation part

[andrewwg94]

in step 7/7, there's an 'advanced' button, when i click on that, it lets me choose where to install GRUB. What happends if i tell it to install it on my Windows Partition?

[cdtech]

This will install the GRUB bootloader to the "master boot record" of your primary drive (which is what you probably want). Unless you plan on booting from another device. With this you will be prompted with the GRUB boot menu on boot with a selection of operating systems installed on your computer.

Hope this helps ya........

[meierfra.]

That happends if i tell it to install it on my Windows Partition?



This will install the GRUB bootloader to the "master boot record" of your primary drive (which is what you probably want).


Wrong. That will overwrite the boot sector of your Windows partition and you won't be able to boot into Windows anymore.

[cdtech]

Wrong. That will overwrite the boot sector of your Windows partition and you won't be able to boot into Windows anymore.

Do what?

If he has one drive (as in dual boot) then the MBR is his windows partition. Without the GRUB bootloader on the MBR he wont be able to boot into Ubuntu.

If Windows is the primary drive and you have Ubuntu installed on a second drive then the choice is yours. You would have to select the drive to boot from within the BIOS.

[meierfra.]

Do what?
?????

Installing Grub to the Windows partition, overwrites the Windows boot sector. That is definitely not what the OP wants.



The MBR is his windows partition

No!

The MBR comes before any partition. To install Grub to the MBR of the boot drive one needs to choose (hd0) after clicking on the advanced button.(or (hd1) for the MBR of the second hard drive)

[cdtech]

My bad, I stand corrected. I misread thinking he wanted to install to the windows drive and not the partition. You are correct about The MBR is not located in a partition, it is located at a Main Boot Record area in front of the partition.

Sorry.........

[meierfra.]

andrewwg94:

Just in case you already did install grub to the Windows partition:

You can restore the Windows boot sector via


fixboot

from repair console of the XP CD or via


bootrec /fixboot

for the Vista CD.

If you do not have a Windows CD, just let me know and I can show you how to uses "testdisk" from Ubuntu to fix the boot sector.

[andrewwg94]

andrewwg94:

Just in case you already did install grub to the Windows partition:

You can restore the Windows boot sector via


fixboot

from repair console of the XP CD or via


bootrec /fixboot

for the Vista CD.

If you do not have a Windows CD, just let me know and I can show you how to uses "testdisk" from Ubuntu to fix the boot sector.

thanks for the info guys, i was wondering what that fixboot command did. So every partition has a boot sector before it? or just the windows partition?

[meierfra.]

So every partition has a boot sector before it? or just the windows partition?

Every partition has boot sector, but it is not before the partition, it's the very first sector of the partition.

Although the boot sector of the Ubuntu partition isn't used for much, unless you install grub to it.