Hi,

I have tryed to install windows (uhuhuhuhuh) but i didn't work but I won't make you bored about that in here.

As you guess windows nuked my mbr.
Since then I installed lilo with my original debian boot cd, but lilo doesn't work for some reason, maybe because i run kernel 2.6.4 and didn't set up the good parameters because it has been done automaticly.

Now i'm trying to re install grub but in all the documentations i read, the explanations are starting from the moment they have the grub prompt ">" and I don't have this prompt as my system now boot directly on my openbsd system instead of having the multiboot.

Under openbsd, i'm able to mount all the linux partition in read only(i think) cause they are mounted as ext2 and not ext3
I'm also able to mount all the partitions with the debian cd install

So does anyone have an idea on how i could stick grub in the mbr ?

Thanxs

Find the linux partition that has your original grub.conf and that grub was orginally on and replace all the x with the right number and remeber that grub starts counting at 0 so subtract 1 off the partition number for grub.
[EDIT]
I guess i should add that when you use the chroot command you are now acting like you are running from that partition.

Here's my partitions

/dev/hda1 /boot
/dev/hda5 /


I have been able to do
chroot /dev/hda5 /bin/bash


but when i type grub

root@(none):/#grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Error opening terminal: bterm

Any idea about what should i do ?

bye

when you get to that terminal, i guess you could try the command:

grub-install /dev/hda

Ok
I have mounted the partition with the installer
They are now mounted in /target

Then did
chroot /target /bin/bash

everything is fine until now

but then

#grub-install /dev/hda
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

Any idea ?

i wasn't sure if that command would work at the recovery command line. can you boot up linux at all? if you made a boot floppy and were able to boot into linux, you could run that grub-install command. short of that, i don't know how you'd go about it at the place your at. it might be easier to just reinstall linux at this point in time since i don't see any other suggestions here on getting grub installed to where you could boot into linux.

No, my laptop doesn't have any floppy disk, but here's the dilema.

I have 3 OSes on the notebook
Debian
Openbsd
Windows

So ok if I reinstall Debian it will be a workaround for this time but I'll have the same problem the next time windows will mess around with the mbr.

I'll proceed the reinstallation if I do not have any other solutions

Thanx

umm, questions rather than answers are:
1) when you boot does it give you an initial screen of some kind of boot manager? And if you think you see one can you quickly press the escape key or the down arrow to stop the auto boot into BSD?

2) If 1 fails can you get into the partition that you KNOW is a linux partition and see a folder called /boot and this is where you will find grub and the menu.ist file?

3) When you installed BSD did you allow linux "emulation" to allow linux files to be run natively on BSD? And so can you open a terminal in BSD but run a linux command?

4) It may be possible depending on your answers to download grub stick it in the correct partition and re-install grub to MBR.

Unfortunately I know little about BSD having only tried it once so the better long term advice may be to start afresh???

edit my poor spelling

hmmm.... just saw this. it may help you out since you'd install grub through windows. and just use ntldr.

http://www.geocities.com/lode_leroy/grubinstall/