in order of importance currently the main problem i need help with is to get back grub on the mbr. i have rh9 (shrike) 2.4.20-8 and windows me and grub as the bootloader. maybe due to a windows partition possibly being written to thru linux (by mounting and opening files) windows refused to start and i ended up with only a bsod which had something like IOS(05) in the last line. so i had to do complete reinstall of windows in a new directory. but now when booting from hard disk, only win me loads and the grub does not come up. i made an rh bootdisk and that helps booting into linux, but how long can a floppy exist and over that there are no more pcs around from where i can make a bootdisk. I do have the rh installer cds but i wud like to know if there's a way to get grub back in action.

how do i make sure that when fat32 partitions are loaded in linux they are not written to.

finally, i have scoured the forums and in many posts discussing i have seen where fstab file is discussed some have very few parameters in a line while some include a lot more details (i'm referring only to mounting of fat32 partitions) i mean how much is necessary?
Thanking in anticipation.

hello!

windows has destroyed your grub. to reinstall grub without a fresh install of linux you have to do this:

boot with your RH cd
type linux rescue
type chroot /mnt/sysimage
type /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda if your partitions changed you have to edit /boot/grub/grub.conf
reboot
i hope this helped you to reinstall grub!

cheers, boby

how do i edit the grub.conf file from rescue mode. are there any commands or utilities. you have also specified edit the grub.conf if my partitions have changed what does that mean? my win partitions are hdcn (where n is the partition number) and linux is on hddn. and nothing else has changed.

sorry i clicked the submit button in a hurry.

Thanks for all those precise technical steps that u gave.

Cheers

hi!

to edit you're grub.conf you can use joe /boot/grub/grub.conf or vi /boot/grub/grub.conf, but if nothing changed it's ok...you don't have to do it.

cheers, boby

Mission success! The only difference being that the line /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda had to be changed to /sbin/grub-install /dev/hdc. Why so don't know for sure. but the thing works and thanks a lot for that.

maybe 'cause you're booting from hdc

All said and done I want to thank all those who have viewed this thread and those who replied and made my life simple. Someday I would want to learn why those steps were necessary. For the time being it's great that the thing works.

Is it necessary to close the topic so that other viewers don't use the post reply button to start a new question or something like that?

HEHE