I'm trying to install FC2 onto one of my partitions and I don't want to overwrite the windows bootloader stuff. I currently have Win ME, Win XP, and Win Server 2003 x86_64 beta installed. During setup I didn't see - although I may have missed it - an option to install GRUB onto a floppy, it only allowed me to install it to the hard drive. I finished the install without installing a boot loader hoping there would be a later option to create a boot disk (floppy/cd). I never came across an option to do this but finished installing anyway. For some reason this has been a big barrier for me every time I've attempted to install Linux in the past as well (SuSE/FreeBSD/Gentoo/SuSE).

Is there a way to create a bootdisk still? or is there a way to boot to the OS from the install CD (i think i was able to do this with SuSE)?

Thanks in advance for the help!
-Travis

Try using the option 'rescue' when you boot up with the install disk.

Your best bet may be to read one of the many NT-Linux boot howto's on how to use the NTLDR to boot into linux. A search for 'NT Grub Boot Howto' on this site or google will give you the instructions. Because the kernel is now to large to fit on a floppy, you could create a bootable floppy instead that contains just the boot loader. Selecting the floppy drive as the boot device and running grub-install should do that. Then you can use it in the meantime to boot up linux, or in the future as an emergency boot disk.

I think that fc2 has a program called mkrescue which will produce a rescue disk cdrom image file that you can burn to cd. ( mkrescue is a script written for the distro, but it is common for the distro's to have written one ). Call it as 'mkrescue --iso' to produce a rescue cd image. One of the options is to boot from the hard drive, so it also functions as a boot disk if neccessary.

thanks jschiwal! I now have successfully installed grub onto my linux partition (hd9) and onto my floppy (fd0). Now I just need to know what to use for the kernel command on the boot floppy. I found this tutorial: http://www.linuxforums.org/tutorials...th-GRUB-2.html And they use:
I think mine would be:
I just have no idea what x is.

Thanks!

i booted from the dvd into linux rescue. I ran "uname -r" and "ls /boot/vmlinuz-*" and found out I was running 2.6.5-1.358, but in grub when i run:
I get: Error 15: File not found

Actually if I just type in "kernel /boot/" and hit tab, nothing pops up. Now I'm really confused.

Look in the /boot directory to identify the full filename of the kernel that you are using. There may also be a link with a shorting name that you could use instead, traditionally 'linux' or 'vmlinuz'.

Use the -l option, ie: ls -l /boot

Also, if you can get Linux running, there should be a place in the system utilities areas that will write a grub boot disk with the proper values for you.

Since you want to use the NTLDR to load in linux, after fixing and testing your boot disk, you still need to copy the first block from the boot disk to a file on floppy. This way you can boot into windows and copy the file to your NTFS C:\ drive.

Well, I can't boot into Linux fully, but I can boot from the install DVD using "linux rescue". Then after a few questions I get to a prompt that says "sh-2.05b# ".

After I run "chroot /mnt/sysimage" I ran "ls -l /boot/" and this is what it lists:
total 2477
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40071 May 8 09:24 config-2.6.5-1.358
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Jul 30 22:07 grub
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 723247 Jul 30 01:21 initrd-2.6.5-1.358.img
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 Jul 29 21:19 lost+found
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 288962 May 8 09:24 System.map-2.6.5-1.358
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1452280 May 8 09:24 vmlinuz-2.6.5-1.358

Any ideas if I can run anything that will generate a grub disk from this command line?

thanks.

I believe to create a boot floppy ( grub only boot floppy ) the command is
grub-install /dev/fd0 after mounting your floppy disk.
---
However, you could finish the process so you don't need to use the boot floppy to boot up.

Install the grub loader into the partition that contains your /boot partition. If you don't have a separate partition for /boot then the command would be:

grub-install /dev/hda9.

Now copy the first 512 bytes of the partition boot record to a file on floppy disk. This is the file that the NTLDR will use to boot into linux.

Mount the floppy drive if it's not mounted (assumes /mnt/floppy exists):
mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

Copy the first 512 bytes to a file on the floppy disk:
dd if=/dev/hda9 of=/mnt/floppy/linux.bin bs=512 count=1

Reboot into Windows XP

Copy the linux.bin file from the floppy disk to C:\

Change the attributes of c:\boot.ini, so it is r/w and unhidden.
attrib -R -S -H C:\boot.ini.

Type in 'edit c:\boot.ini' and add a line at the bottom:
c:\linux.bin="Linux"

If you want you can change the default selection in a line near the top to "Linux"

Save the file and change the attributes back:
attrib +R +S +H c:\boot.ini


That's it. Now you should be able to select 'Linux' from the NTLDR's menu.

This is how I created my boot floppy with my 2.6.5-1.358 kernel under FC2. It worked for me, maybe it will work for you...
[list=1][*]Format a floppy in Ext2FS. (The floppy should not be mountedto format it.)
[*]Mount the floppy and create the directories /boot and /boot/grub on it.
[*]Copy stage1 and stage2 from the Grub's directory. (*stage1_5 aren't necessary.)
(If the files don't exist, just search for them with whereis grub.)

Let's copy also the kernel image.
[*]Unmount the floppy.
[*]Now we are going to install Grub on the floppy.
Now, Grub is installed on the floppy.[*]Let's create a multiple choice menu for loading FC2 and Windows XP.

Re-mount the floppy.
In a text editor, like gEdit, create a text file /mnt/floppy/boot/grub/menu.lst . In it, that is what we are going to type:
Save and exit. Reboot your computer to see if the floppy is working [/list=1]