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Old 08-11-2011, 09:12 PM   #1
theKbStockpiler
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Can't talk enough about GRUB, Here's more.


I assume that Grub relocates a MS bootloader to the last part of a MBR so bIOS can't access it. Is this true? Grub overwrote my MS bootloader somehow so I don't think the Windows boot loaders are within the O.S partition.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited by theKbStockpiler; 08-11-2011 at 09:28 PM. Reason: Change title
 
Old 08-11-2011, 10:39 PM   #2
yancek
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Quote:
I assume that Grub relocates a MS bootloader to the last part of a MBR so bIOS can't access it
No. It overwrote your windows mbr entry. Windows boot files like Linux Grub are too big to fit in the mbr and are on the partition. The mbr doesn't contain much more than info telling where to go to find boot files. The difference being that when installing Grub you are asked. Many people new to Grub may not understand what is being asked and have problems. The default on most systems is to the mbr but any Linux system I have installed with Grub gives the options, mbr, partition, don't install Grub. Windows just overwrites the mbr. Doesn't ask you, doesn't tell you.

If you go to the root of your windows partition, usually referred to as C:\, you should be able to see the boot files for whatever version of windows you are using. Sometimes they are hidden files like boot.ini on xp and w2k.
 
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Old 08-11-2011, 11:09 PM   #3
qlue
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You probably want to read this (if you haven't already)
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...S-installation

Last edited by qlue; 08-11-2011 at 11:13 PM.
 
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Old 08-12-2011, 02:38 PM   #4
theKbStockpiler
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Thanks for the reply!

I'll have to look into how the MBR is read by Grub. Thanks for pointing out where Windows bootloader is. I was thinking that Grub might copy the Windows location to it's binary but I doubt it now. The grub binary behaves too blindly in my opinion. I have not had any reliability with it with more than two O.S on it and the Grub commands are inconsistent.Sometimes find /linuz will work and sometimes it won't.I have a screwed up drive because of Mandriva's strange Automated partitioner in their Installer. I have a Distro I don't think I can move which I heavily rely on.It made one primary partition and that was it so this O.S is on a logical drive.All I have remaining are logical drives. Some people claim that this is okay but when I add an O.S ,the previous one tends to disappear but not immediately.
 
Old 08-12-2011, 04:55 PM   #5
yancek
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If you have trouble with multiple operating systems, you might check this link:

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?t=143973

Not sure what you mean by inconsistent commands. With Grub, if you do find /vmlinuz you will only get output if you have a kernel (vmlinuz file) in the / directory. Most distributions put it in the /boot directory so a command: find /boot/vmlinuz would give you different output.
Also, I don't believe Grub2 uses the find command but rather ls.

Quote:
I have a Distro I don't think I can move which I heavily rely on.It made one primary partition and that was it so this O.S is on a logical drive.All I have remaining are logical drives. Some people claim that this is okay but when I add an O.S ,the previous one tends to disappear but not immediately
Not sure what you mean by that?
 
Old 08-13-2011, 01:13 AM   #6
Wim Sturkenboom
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theKbStockpiler View Post
... I have a Distro I don't think I can move which I heavily rely on.
If I understand that correctly, you better don't fool around with that computer.

Last edited by Wim Sturkenboom; 08-13-2011 at 11:48 PM. Reason: fixed quote
 
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Old 08-13-2011, 02:04 PM   #7
theKbStockpiler
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I will probably make an image of It and exhaust MBR editiing topics

A little info is proving to be dangerous:I have a spare computer but I loaned it out till December and I'm trying to find a old laptop that has not been used for driving nails.

Whatever you have to do to make a O.S unbootable is beyond me. I used every bootfix, fixmbr ,and the whole ten yards from a XP Rescue Console to get XP back. With Fedora the biggest problem is that I was using the grub shell for trying to install-grub, works a lot better in the correct shell. I could not fathom how I could mount the partition from another O.S and NOT BOOT THE DAMN THING!Ugh! Most of the online Docs do not state that you have to use (SU), a big issue. How can you wipe out Windows when the location is part of BIOS?On some distros Multibooting Xp ,Linux ,Linux will work for a week or so ,then all of a sudden one will not bootup. Windows is not effected. I have fooled with the menu.lst file and it does not behave like it should so the problem is indirectly connected to this. If you add the lost distro to menu.lst it will not boot the other even when it is in the menu.lst file. Not enough room somewhere?


On this particular drive I used Mandriva's Manual partitioner selection which is really a Automated partitioner. You make vague choices and Mandriva makes a strange MBR for you. I wanted four partitions for the install of multiple O.S installs so It made one primary one and one extended one with three logical drives. I have experimented on a blank drive and I don't know why it would prefer to partition a drive like that other than to give you practice with a rescue disk. When you use Gparted the Partition rules prevail but not when Mandriva's install partitioner is used, it has it's own rules. I know if you have one O.S on a whole drive a partition tool will move it on to a partition but I think my drive mess is too complicated to try this approach. Thanks for the 100 distro link. I will read it letter for letter.Bash has always been buggy in the terminal for me. A lot of time if a command will not work you just do it again and it will. If you are not sure what actually works it is a huge burden. I have to completely close a Bash terminal to get it to reset usually. On multiple distro installations the last distro does not respect the one before it and you can't boot it.



Long winded reading for extra credit.

I have to recompile the kernel so Fedora will use autocomplete in the grub-shell and I'm going to stick it out with Fedora in General. I tried Open Suse a few times because I wanted a Mandriva like replacement and I have a few things to share about that. Suse makes the default desktop and panel the same color so you can't see it when you make a panel. I Thought that to make it theirs Suse did not allow for a top panel, to make it like KDE. A top and lower panel are the best things about Gnome and Linux in general.I had Dependencies that could not be resolved with both CentOS 6 and Open Suse 11.3 was it? With CentOS when you tried to install a RPM file it would list a dependency and when you installed it ,it would make no difference. The same message would come up after going back to the original RPM file. Suse did the same thing with DVD repositories that I had. I would have to say that they both rank down there with Mandriva 10 as a Distro to not put time into for someone that is learning.With Mandriva 10 you just had to accept that you would never get any media player to work ever.

Last edited by theKbStockpiler; 08-13-2011 at 02:18 PM.
 
Old 08-13-2011, 07:19 PM   #8
yancek
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Quote:
Whatever you have to do to make a O.S unbootable is beyond me
The easiest way to do that with windows is to use it. I'm not sure if you mean unbootable here or bootable?

If you can't get xp to boot after having Linux on the machine, you are looking at a windows(microsoft) problem but I'm not sure that's what you are referring to?

Quote:
I could not fathom how I could mount the partition from another O.S and NOT BOOT THE DAMN THING
They are totally separate things. Being able to view folders/files on a partition from another OS doesn't have anything to do with being able to boot the 2nd OS.

Quote:
If you add the lost distro to menu.lst it will not boot the other even when it is in the menu.lst file.
I'm not really sure what you are referring to here either? Using the wrong menu.lst or an incorrect entry is usually the problem.

I've not used Mandriva so am not familiar with its partitioner. Have used PCLinux which was based on Mandriva and I believe earlier versions used its partitioner. I usually select whichever option gives the most control. Automated partitioners are problematic, I think, particularly when you have or want to install multiple distributions.

The link I posted earlier should occupy you for a good while.
 
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Old 08-14-2011, 12:51 AM   #9
Wim Sturkenboom
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Whatever you have to do to make a O.S unbootable is beyond me. I used every bootfix, fixmbr ,and the whole ten yards from a XP Rescue Console to get XP back.
Not being able to fix the MBR is (as said) a Windows issue, not a Linux one.

Quote:
How can you wipe out Windows when the location is part of BIOS?
Whatever location you're referring to, it's not part of the BIOS.

Quote:
On some distros Multibooting Xp ,Linux ,Linux will work for a week or so ,then all of a sudden one will not bootup. Windows is not effected.
Never had the problem the following multiboot scenarios:
RH7.2/Win98SE, RH7.2/RH8.0/Win2K, Slackware10.0/Win98SE, Slackware12.0/WinXP, Ubuntu5.04/Win2K, Ubuntu(all LTS)/WinXP

So if this was your experience, you have been unlucky in your choices I agree however that there are enough issues around distros that make me worried about upgrades. I upgrade my Ubuntu installs every two years and actually pray that it will still work after that; seen too much sh.t on ubuntuforums regarding upgrades.

Having said that, your choice of an experimental distro like Fedora (the test ground for Red Hat) is surprising from that perspective. On the other hand, you possibly have the best chances with support for modern 'stuff'.

Quote:
On this particular drive I used Mandriva's Manual partitioner selection which is really a Automated partitioner. You make vague choices and Mandriva makes a strange MBR for you. I wanted four partitions for the install of multiple O.S installs so It made one primary one and one extended one with three logical drives. I have experimented on a blank drive and I don't know why it would prefer to partition a drive like that other than to give you practice with a rescue disk.
That's to make Windows users feel at home If you install Windows XP and you opt to use multiple partitions, it does the same thing if you partition the drive. And it's not the MBR but the partition table; this is not meant as nit picking, but I initially had problems understanding what you were talking about.

Quote:
With Mandriva 10 you just had to accept that you would never get any media player to work ever.
Not sure how old this 'experience' is, but Mandriva 10 is from 2004. That was a time when 'everything worked out of the box' absolutely did not apply.

Last edited by Wim Sturkenboom; 08-14-2011 at 12:52 AM.
 
Old 08-14-2011, 08:19 PM   #10
theKbStockpiler
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One distro will work on a Logical volume and thats that.

I think I figured out the Mandriva Installation Partitioner. It' a pig. It assumes that it will be the only O.S on the drive so there is no reason for more than one primary partition. I'm reading a great DOS centered guide here http://www.mrkay.org/zenpc/ref/hdd/f...uctBoot-c.html This might be the first page of it or not because they did not include an index or a back-up option.I experimented with the "Manual" Partitioner in Ubuntu 7.10 and it did the same thing but this was a while ago but not in 2004.

Mandriva 10 was still being reviewed in 2009. Oh wait a minute. I mean Mandriva 2010. That is why Mandriva went to hell is because the don't know how to name a version. That and they wanted to be like GM.

Last edited by theKbStockpiler; 08-14-2011 at 08:20 PM.
 
  


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