Hi

I am using an acer E525 Laptop (dual boot Vista/Debian) and want to update from Lenny to Squeeze using
debian-6.0.3-i386-DVD-1.iso

The installation was fine except that grub didn't work. Although at the end, the installation procedure recognised that windows vista was available, the grub installation did not succeed in putting this option into the boot menu.

I reinstalled using
debian-6.0.4-i386-CD-1.iso
and the grub menu installation succeeded (meaning I could use Vista). But I don’t want the CD installation because too much is missing and I do not have a full CD set (just CD-1) and downloading a set in Uganda – well you shouldn’t do it !!!

My questions…
Is this problem known ?
I have had a look for the config files
debian-6.0.3-i386-DVD-1.iso
debian-6.0.4-i386-CD-1.iso
I have only found the config files /boot/grub/grub.cfg on both installations and they are not identical

where are "ALL" the config files. I know of the files
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
/etc/grub.d/
00_header
00_debian_theme
10_linux
20_linux_xen
30_os-prober
30_others
40_custom
README

Thanks for your help
Dragonfish

try re-installing debian again - with that DvD
if that disk is ok - it should install ok with just that one disk.

also - after booting from that live DvD - does the 'live environment' seem to work okay ??.

how did you adjust the partition for Vista ?
- with it's own partition manager ( good idea)
- or with the manager from the debian installer ( bad idea)

Thanks Pierre,

it's not a "live" DVD. I'm not used to this concept. Isn't this like knoppix. Its a standard "install me" DVD-1. I have repeated the installation 3 time and no luck. The CD-1 always install grub correctly.

I have 4 primary partitions
sda1 (disk space that vista always squanders)
sda2 - ntfs Vista boot partition
sda3 - ntfs data partition
sda4 - ext2 for debian

Dragonfish

Most likely in /etc/grub.d directory. Did you get any error or warning messages during the installation? I've often received a warning if I forgot to create a swap partition and didn't have one. You don't? Might not need it so...?
You were able to boot Debian but not windows, was that the problem? If you can boot Debian, running grub-mkconfig script as root from a terminal might work. If you don't find a solution, I would suggest you get the bootinfoscript at the link below, read the instructions and after downloading it, run it and post the results.txt file it outputs.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

Thanks Yancek,

No I didn't install a swap parttion and there were no error messages during the install proceedure. The installation proceedure is identical between the DVD-1 (version 6.0.3) and CD-1 (version 6.0.4)

I didn't install a swap partition because I just want to get this up and running and this is the first time in about 15 years (lilo -> grub) that this hasn't worked.

After the CD-1 installation the boot menu offers Debian & Vista
After the DVD-1 installation the boot menu offers Debian NO Vista

I was just checking out the version numbers on the Debian website - they're upt to 6.0.5 and as I said I have
6.0.3-i386-DVD-1.iso
6.0.4-i386-CD-1.iso

I would expect the config files for a distribution number to be identical (and everything else to be identical) but as I said the config files between
6.0.3-i386-DVD-1.iso
6.0.4-i386-CD-1.iso
are not identical. Could there be a known problem with the grub installation with 6.0.3 - just speculating !!!
Dragonfish

I installed Debian from a 1.1GB DVD, 6.0.3 and didn't have any problems. What happened when you ran the grub-mkconfig script I suggested earlier? Did you download and run the bootinfoscript? It might help to get a solution.

Am I right in thinkig, that grub can be reconfigured using /boot/grub/grub.cfg. The config files are different between the two installations...

The grub.cfg file generated by the CD-1 installation (which works) has the following lines

### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_otheros ###

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
menuentry "Windows Vista (loader)" {
set root=(hd0,msdos1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 4c480c0d480bf50c
chainloader +1
}

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda2
menuentry "Windows Vista (loader)" {
set root=(hd0,msdos2)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 386044cb60449214
chainloader +1
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_otheros ###

The grub.conf file generated by the DVD-1 installation (which doesn't work) has the following lines

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

Confusingly, http://wiki.debian.org/Grub/ says...4 Jan 2012 – You can edit the settings in /boot/grub/menu.lst. Make sure you read the comments, /usr/share/doc/grub/README.Debian.gz for more... but the file /boot/grub/menu.lst does not exist and there are no menu files in this directory. I was expecting two menu files since loading requires chain-loading and therefore a second menu. The menu seems to be generated with the grub.cfg file with menuentry ............

Looking at things as they stand... the following thought - would it simply be enough to replace the grub.cfg as generated in the DVD-1 installation (which doesn't work because the menuentrys are not there) with the grub.cfg file from the CD-1 installation (which does work and I can swap them as both versions have been saved on an ntfs partition) and then regenerate grub, using this new config file - or am I just being too simplistic here. If it doesn't work, I can't see too much damage being done as I can simply reinstall from CD-1. If I were to do this then what would be the command (or commands) to regenerate (or reconfigure) grub with the new grub.cfg file.

Thanks in advance for the help
Dragonfish

The best way to reconfigure Grub2 is in /etc/default/grub and /etc/grub.d by editing the files there. Or if you are dual booting and after editing the files in /etc then you will want to run " update-grub ". You can change grub.cfg but on the next update you could lose all your hard work.

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The version(s) of Debian you have now use Grub2. There is no menu.lst file. Its' equivalent is the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file. You can copy the working entry to the non-working grub.cfg file but, as stated above when you do any type of upgrade you will probably lose the entry. You need to put the entry in the /etc/grub.d/40_custom folder. At least that is my understanding of it. After that, run grub-mkconfig as root.

Thanks for both replies guys - I'll try that tomorrow

Dragonfish

grub-mkconfig is to messy running update-grub in Debian is much cleaner.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks everyone for the assistance, update-grub did the trick. Such a simple solution to such an annoying problem. Again Thanks

Dragonfish