Hello Everyone,

I posted this question in the Ubuntu forum, but couldn't get a single response.

I have Ubuntu Hardy running fine on my laptop, but my desktop has five OS's, XP and four Linux distros which I have kept updated. I use the Grub menu.lst from PCLinuxOS and all the rest are booted from this.

When I first installed Ubuntu Gutsy it tried to overwrite this file and I remember having to bob-and-weave around this to keep it from doing so.

My question is if I upgrade to Hardy using the Update Manager will it automatically overwrite the existing menu.lst on the MBR? I should note that Ubuntu is installed on a separate IDE drive (sdb1) and the menu.lst is located on the MBR of sda, an SATA drive.

I know it would not be a complete disaster if it did because if I had to I could just re-install Grub but I would rather not have to manually reenter all of this.

Does anyone know the answer to this? I am concerned because I know Hardy automatically overwrites is OWN menu.lst to upgrade.

Any replies will be appreciated.

Bob

The answer is "I'm not sure".
I always take a backup of menu.lst before instlling a new distro / doing a major update, and I always have a live CD to hand. That way it takes just a couple of minutes to get things working again if something unexpected happens.

If I understand you well,Ubuntu's boot loader is installed on the root partition of sdb.If that's so you should have no problem upgrading.If you want my opinion about upgrading,don't do it.If you don't have separated /home partition or any other directory that may be important to you,on another partition,why not create some and then do a clean install of Hardy?

Thank you both for your replies. I had thought that since Ubuntu had it's own installation of grub on sdb it would not affect the one on sda's MBR. But I asked the question because Ubuntu can do the some strange things the bootloaders of other distros when installing or upgrading. I have to edit the main menu.lst everytime I install a new kernel in any of the distros, but an major distro upgrade concerned me.

Alan ri, as it turns out, I am reconsidering upgrading at all. On the Ubuntu forums are an endless parade of users with upgrade horror stories. Gutsy is running quite well and I don't think the benefit of upgrading is worth the risk. I have decided to hold off for a while.

Thanks again for the replies.

Best regards

Bob