I have an AMD64 system with an nforce-3 chipset.
supports SATA, but i dont use it.

i cannot install GRUB to my MBR.

a while ago, grub failed, just stoped booting, it just hung at the word "grub" before it usualy says loaging stage 2.

i booted my rescue disk, and ran "grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/root/ /dev/hda"
i get a "/dev/hda" no corresponding bios drive error"

if i enter grub, and run setup (hd0) i get an invalid device string.

my hard drive is a normal IDE disk attached to primary master.

This was all on Gentoo.

i installed Fedora core3 to a spare partiton, the fedora installer sucessfullly fixed grub, but now grubs config files are on the wrong partiton.

ive tried to installg rub from fedora, but i get the exact same error !

i have ro run an entire fedora core3 install just to re-install brub to MBR.

i cannot rmeove the fedora partiton.

and the fedora boot disk in rescue mode doesnt allow you to install grub. any help ?

The drives may be listed as something other than /dev/hda because of SATA .
If you boot up with the rescue cd to the command prompt, type: fdisk -l to see what the drives are called.

I have a sata and before I installed.....I used knoppix 3.6 kernel 2.4 to partition as
cfdisk /dev/sda
then used qtparted to format partitions.

2) if I use the 2.6 kernel on knoppix it sees the drive as hde.

3) I have a amd64 but using a 32 bit Mdk 10.1 not the 64 bit version but I don't think that makes any difference to the partition issue.

qwijibow, I ran into this problem a day or so ago. I can't be sure, but I think grub's device map file got screwed somehow. Try this:
grub-install --recheck /dev/hda

The --recheck will force grub to go through its drive mapping routine again and display what it found and how they're mapped. Honestly, I used the exact same command and the exact same install location for grub with the addition of the --recheck, and things started working again. Weirdest thing.

At the very least, it will indicate if grub is having a problem seeing a drive.

Great, worked perfectly..
well, ive not re-booted yet, but if i dont report back within 5 minutes, cnayone can assume it did.

The difference, is i removed the SATA driver from loading at bootup since i dont use it, maybe grub freaked when SATA dissapreared.

anyways, thanks.