thanks guys for your time!
ok,so i have hdd with debian distro on it and table partition as follows: sda1(vfat- primary), sda4 (vfat- extended),sda2(primary linux swap),sda3(ext3-primary-boot).
on another hdd which is smaller i recreated the partition table with fdisk and resized the sda4 extended one, then i used clonezilla and cloned sda3 which basically contains the os and the one partiton that i most need.
the first hdd has lilo 2.22 boot loader, on the second hdd that i cloned i have to restore lilo but do not know how(any sugestions here will be most welcomed), so i thought to install grub from a ubuntu 9.10 installation cd. here is what i have tried:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ grub-install --root-directory=/boot /dev/sda3
Could not find device for /boot/boot: Not found or not a block device.
any sugestions on how to do it? i need to boot the cloned os. thank you!!

You can copy the boot loader using dd using a live CD or a Linux system running from sda.

Your command from the live cd is missing the 'mnt'.

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

Here is a great article from ubuntu and installing from live cd is close to the end.

grub2

Are you talking to me?

I said are you talking to me?

I don't see anyone else so you must be talking to me.



Actually, he is using lilo.

My method does not depend on any file system being mounted.

However, lilo will be copied to the new disk with the same configuration so it will attempt to boot from the first disk that the motherboard sees. That will work if he removes the original disk. It will not work if he keeps both disks.

If he keeps both disks then he should edit the lilo.conf on the second disk then chroot into that partition and run the lilo installer.

No I was talking to OP, if you will look he tried to install grub2 and I was just showing him a typo error.

I have installed grub2 a couple of different times but have always installed it on its own separate ext4 partition.

My brain stopped when he said that he had tried to get lilo onto the new disk.

I have that problem also.

I am not sure how many file systems grub2 will adapt to. (about all I think)

thank you guys for reply!! so i've tried what stress_junkie suggested but with little success, it did go however from black screen to just appearing " Li_ " and then hanged. then i looked over the article suggested by larry webb and followed the steps for installing grub2 and it worked like a charm.
thanks again guys for your solutions and suggestions!! topic can be closed, cya!

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