Hi there. I'm new to linux so i guess im in the right place. I created an image of linux and then restored it on to a second hard drive. It is now my job to get it working. I've disconnected the first hard drive. The second hard drive won;t boot however. I can only assume i need to modify the grub file to point to the correct device for booting.

I'm using the partimage rescue cd to get into the command line.

I then mount the boot drive and can't find grub.conf in /boot/grub/

I've also mounted the /etc/ directory on the main drive but i still can't locatred it.

What am i doing wrong?

Dear Izac,

Which partition is grub expecting grub.conf to be in? If it's looking for the original hard drive, or a partition therein not labeled the same as that in the new hard drive, it won't find it.

- Ben

Ah from what i can understand its looking for the hard drive at hd 0,0 and i need to change it to hd 1,0 which is the new hard drive.


I want to be able to disconnect the first hard drive and have the second hard drive boot up by itself.


I've created the boot and main and swap partitions and restored the image that i created from the first hard drive on to them.

What distribution are you running?

You just need to install the bootloader to the second drive. Assuming that the second drive is now in the same location as the first. If not you will need to modify the /etc/fstab to reflect the different device ID i.e. hdx (or sdx) of the new drive in addition to the bootloader configuration file.

The file your looking for is actually /boot/grub/menu.lst and not grub.conf. There are a few distros like Redhat that uses /etc/grub.conf file. In this case the menu.lst is a link that points to grub.conf.

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/x /dev/hda

Where x is the directory where you mounted the root directory.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...20grub-install

Assuming your really using grub. If using lilo then its /etc/lilo.conf.

Thanks for the speediness of your reply. Im using RED HAT Linux 9. I've found the menu.lst file and it appears to be some kind of shortcut when i click on it i stay in the same directory whis is /boot/grub/. I still can't find grub.conf after i click on it. i can find a file thats called grub.conf.sample but not the actual grub.conf file.

I know the file is there cause i have booted into linux when using the first hard drive(as a test) and I can find there. I can only assume im monting something wrong. I can't even fidn the grub.conf when i look in the command line on the first hard drive.

RH puts it in /etc/grub.conf

vi /etc/grub.conf gets me there everytime.

If you boot the 1st install CD and select rescue mode. Your root partition will be mounted at /mnt/sysimage
So run the commands
chroot /mnt/sysimage

You can use the vi editor to change the /etc/grub.conf file and the /etc/fstab file.

Then
grub-install /dev/hdx

Where hdx is the location of the "new drive"

Thanks i was able to get in under the first hard drive as a test. Now second hard drive died on me so I gotta RMA it. Thanks again for the help.