Hello,

After creating a new partition in Windows XP, when I restarted the computer I got the GRUB message "Error 17". The GRUB docs indicate that it can't recognise the FS of a partition, but I don't see what the problem is.

My hard drive has a Linux partition at the start of the drive, then three NTFS partitions (the one right at the end of the disk is the newest). I checked the filesystem identifiers using fdisk on Knoppix and they're OK.

I've tried running "grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/mnt/hda1 /dev/hda" in Knoppix but apparently it can't find or open /dev/root.

Help!

GRUB uses a "device map" to locate its "Stage 2" files. Your new partition may have changed the "real" device map from the one GRUB has installed in the boot sector.

However, if Knoppix can't find you Linux installation, XP may have "decided" that you weren't really serious about Linux, and "reused" your Linux space.

Suggestion: Boot Knoppix and create a GRUB boot floppy (Here's a brief description of how it can be done I wrote a while ago. If you use mkfs -t vfat instead of mke2fs, you should be able to edit the floppy from XP.) Then see if you can change (if it doesn't boot) the root line so it does work.

If you can get Fedora to boot, see if a "grub-install" fixes your problem.

This computer doesn't have a floppy drive.

I've tried doing:-
chroot /mnt/hda1
grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

From Knoppix also but then I get a "/dev/null: Permission denied" error.

Never mind, I fixed it eventually. I stopped messing with grub-install and just ran grub instead.

root (hd0,0)
setup hd0
quit

Then all I needed to do was fix my menu.lst. It turns out that XP rewrote the partition table so it is in order (Originally, although Linux was the first partition, it was listed as being hda3). This consequenly broke GRUB and even NTLDR! Now that's what I call stable software.