So grub legacy comes up, your able to boot voyager, but not debian. If that is true use the debian rescue cd to install grub2 to the debian partition ,and chainload from grub legacy, Your grub legacy might not be able to boot an ext3 that is formatted with a 256 anode size , some grub legacy versions can only handle a partitions formated with a 128 anode size, That might be the problem

No no no... grub doesn't load from a normal boot. I can get to it by using superbootmanager on an external floppy.

I don't think smart btmgr has grub 1.98. It only chainload existing grub. We need to check first if installed debian works properly by bypassing grub in MBR. Please try again with supergrub2 disk.

btw, some people here mixed up grub stanzas

for /boot/grub/menu.lst to boot debian 6

root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=/dev/sda5 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
boot

for /boot/grub/grub.cfg

set root=(hd0,5)
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=/dev/sda5 ro
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
boot

HTH

if you can boot into Debian then as root run ' dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc '. dpkg will ask you a couple of questions so make sure you install grub to /dev/sda. Then it will run update-grub. Hopefully after that you can boot into all 3 of your Distros. If only Debian then run update-grub yourself and that should work.

hurry_hui; Thanks, yes the one posted before was so wrong. As noted, debian works when chainloading with the existing grub. So do i still need to use subergrub2disk ?? The reason i ask is i've had no luck yet getting it to make a boot floppy. It seems to be the same as smrtbtmgr?

@62chevy.. no, i've done that many times. I did it again. no it makes no change, although i have grub2 again now. And there are only 2 distros.

Sorry about that, had the wrong root partition number in my earlier post. are you now able to boot off your harddrive into voyager without using the floppy disk?

I do not know what the thing is supposed to look like, but if you have grub2 working, you could add a menu entry for your MS install to the 40_custom script file and it should work from there.

Some kind soul would have to supply the entry for you if you do not know it. I sure don't.

Yes, you still need supergrub2 disk, apparently there is something missing in existing grub. Smart btmgr is just a bootmanager and requires bootloader like grub, lilo, or ntloader installed to root partition (or MBR) to operate properly.

If you have floppy you can use dd (linux) like below or rawrite / rawritewin for windows.

dd if=name_of_supergrub2_disk.iso of=/dev/fd0

(you need blank floppy to do this)

If you prefer USB you can use dd and/or unetbootin (having support for both linux and windows).

OK i have supergrub2disk working now. what exactly do i need to input?? because 'ls (hd0,1)/' returned 'error: no such partition' and 'linux /boot/...' returned "unknown command 'linux'".

@widget; there is no windows, i don't know where you got that idea.
@c.purple; still no. and it's voyage.

You can try menu 'Detect any OS'. This should output kernels detected on harddisk.

If this cannot work properly we can try 'ls' to see available hdd and partition and then manually enter certain folders.

"unknown command 'menu'"
"unknown command 'Detect'"
ls:
"(hd0) (fd0)"
ls (hd0):
"error: unknown filesystem"
ls (hd0,0)/ls (hd0,1)/ ls (hd0,2):
"error: no such partition"

Well I got that idea from this in your boot info script results;
and way a little concerned about the lack of boot files. I guess I will quit worrying about that.

Ahh. That would be the usb drive

Sorry for not being clear.

on supergrub menu there are followings:

Detect any OS
Detect any GRUB2 configuration file (grub.cfg)
Detect any GRUB2 installation (even if mbr is overwritten)
Detect loop bootable isos (in /boot-isos or /boot/boot-isos)
Enable GRUB2's LVM support
Enable GRUB2's RAID support
Enable GRUB2's PATA support (to work around BIOS bugs/limitations)
Enable GRUB2's USB support *experimental*
Enable serial terminal
List devices/partitions

-----------------------------------

select this menu to activate ata module
Enable GRUB2's PATA support (to work around BIOS bugs/limitations)

then try again with this menu
Detect any OS

or try these on command line

insmod ext2

ls (hd0,1)/

ls (hd0,5)/

HTH

soo.. how do i get to this menu? ..all i have is a grub recovery prompt.

edit: I am getting 'error: out of disk' and then the prompt.. not the menu i think you're talking about as here